How to Bulk-Translate a Locale

Fill all missing translations in a locale with one click — with progress tracking and cancel support.

Bulk translation sends all missing (or all) keys in a locale to your AI provider sequentially. It's the fastest way to get a new locale from empty to complete.

Requirements

Configure an AI provider in Project Settings → AI first. See Set Up AI Translation in 5 Minutes.

Starting a bulk translation

In the per-key detail pane, each non-base locale's header has two buttons:

✨ N — translates the N keys that are currently Missing in this locale (leaves existing translations untouched)
↻ all — re-translates every key in this locale, overwriting all existing values

Click either button to open the bulk translate dialog.

Tip: prefer the Command Palette's Translate all missing with AI when you want to fill gaps across every non-base locale in one pass — see How to Translate All Missing Cells at Once. The locale-header buttons are the right tool for a single-locale focused pass.

The bulk translate dialog

The dialog shows:

The target locale and provider you're using
The number of keys that will be translated
A confirmation button to start

Click Translate to begin. A progress bar tracks the current key number.

Bulk translate confirmation dialog showing the target locale, provider, and key count

Cancelling

Click Cancel at any time. The current in-flight translation finishes (it can't be interrupted), then the run stops. All translations completed before you cancelled are saved.

Results summary

When the run completes (or is cancelled), a summary shows:

How many keys were translated successfully
How many failed (with the key names listed)
Option to close or retry failed keys individually

Failed keys typically happen due to transient API errors. Retry them individually with ✨ or start another bulk pass — StringLane retries each failed key up to two times before marking it as failed.

Bulk translate results summary showing translated key count and any failures

Tips for best results

Add product context first. Bulk runs use the same prompt as single-key translation. Better context = better results across all keys. See Configure Guarded Words and Product Context.
Run ✨ N (missing only) on first pass. The ↻ all option is useful for refreshing translations after changing your product context or guarded words, but will overwrite any manual corrections you've made.
Check for Param and ICU badges after the run. Bulk translation sometimes produces placeholder mismatches on strings with variables. Fix these manually or re-translate individual keys.