Bulk edit Shopify translations

Shopify lets you translate your store’s content into multiple languages so customers can shop in their preferred language. Translations live at the resource level: each product title, description, collection, page, and so on can have a translated version per locale (and optionally per market).

Maintaining translations in the Shopify admin is slow: you edit one resource at a time, one language at a time. Mixtable lets you do this in bulk. You can add a translation column to any worksheet, see the source content and the translation side by side, and sync changes to Shopify for all your rows in one click.

What you need before you start

• Your Shopify store must have at least one non-primary language configured. You add languages in Shopify under Settings → Languages.
• You need a Mixtable worksheet that syncs the Shopify object you want to translate (Products, Collections, Pages, etc.).

How translations work in Mixtable

When you add a translation column to a worksheet, Mixtable:

1. Loads the current translated value for that field and locale from Shopify into the column.
2. Lets you read and edit the translated content directly in the spreadsheet, one row per resource, one column per translatable field and language combination.
3. Pushes your changes back to Shopify when you click Send to Shopify, updating the translation for every edited row at once.

You can have as many translation columns as you need, for example, a French title column, a German description column, and a Spanish SEO title column all in the same worksheet.

If your store uses Shopify Markets, you can also scope a translation column to a specific market so the translated value only applies to that market’s customers.

Step-by-step: add a translation column (Product Title example)

The steps below use Product Title → French as an example, but the process is the same for any field and any language.

1. Open a Products worksheet in Mixtable. If you don’t have one yet, set up a spreadsheet and add a Products worksheet.

2. To load new Shopify data, start by selecting an empty column — any column with a non-green header (green headers mean the column is already linked to Shopify data). Then, click the button in the column header to open the selection window to choose the data you want to pull in.

   

3. In the column settings window that opens, select Translations.

4. In the field list, find and select Product Title. Use the search box to filter the list if needed.

5. Under Languages, select the locale you want to translate into, for example, French.

6. If your store has Shopify Markets configured, choose All to set a store-wide translation, or pick a specific market to target only that market’s customers.

7. Click Save. Mixtable adds the column, labelled Product Title (French), and loads any existing French translations from Shopify.

8. Type or paste your translated content into the cells. You can fill down, paste from Excel, or use Find & Replace to make bulk edits.

9. Click Send to Shopify to push all changes to Shopify at once.

Use the Translations pre-built template

If you want to get started quickly, Mixtable’s Translations spreadsheet template creates a ready-to-use workbook that covers the most common translatable fields across products, collections, pages, and more, organized by language. It’s the fastest way to get an overview of your store’s translation coverage and start filling gaps.

To use it, click Create Spreadsheet from the Mixtable dashboard and select the Translations template from the template list.

Supported Shopify objects and translatable fields

Mixtable supports translation columns for the following Shopify objects and fields. Text metafield translations (single_line_text_field and multi_line_text_field metafields) are also supported on all objects where metafields are available.

Products

Field	Description
Product Title	The product’s name
Handle	The URL-friendly identifier
Description	The product’s body HTML
Product Type	The product type label
SEO Page Title	The SEO meta_title field
SEO Meta Description	The SEO meta_description field
Option 1 Name	Name of the first product option (e.g. “Color”)
Option 2 Name	Name of the second product option (e.g. “Size”)
Option 3 Name	Name of the third product option

Product Variants

Works from a Products (with variants) worksheet. You can translate both the parent product fields and the variant-specific fields from the same worksheet.

Parent product fields:

Field	Description
Product Title	The parent product’s name
Product Description	The parent product’s body HTML
Product Handle	The parent product’s URL handle
Product Type	The parent product type label
Product SEO Page Title	The parent product’s SEO meta_title
Product SEO Meta Description	The parent product’s SEO meta_description
Product Option 1 Name	Name of the first product option
Product Option 2 Name	Name of the second product option
Product Option 3 Name	Name of the third product option

Variant-specific fields:

Field	Description
Variant Option 1 Value	The variant’s value for option 1 (e.g. “Red”)
Variant Option 2 Value	The variant’s value for option 2 (e.g. “Large”)
Variant Option 3 Value	The variant’s value for option 3

Collections

Field	Description
Title	The collection name
Handle	The URL-friendly identifier
Description	The collection body HTML
SEO Page Title	The SEO meta_title field
SEO Meta Description	The SEO meta_description field

Pages

Field	Description
Title	The page title
Handle	The URL-friendly identifier
Body	The page body HTML
SEO Page Title	The SEO meta_title field
SEO Meta Description	The SEO meta_description field

Blogs

Field	Description
Title	The blog title
Handle	The URL-friendly identifier
SEO Page Title	The SEO meta_title field
SEO Meta Description	The SEO meta_description field

Articles

Field	Description
Title	The article title
Handle	The URL-friendly identifier
Body	The article body HTML
Summary	The article summary HTML
SEO Page Title	The SEO meta_title field
SEO Meta Description	The SEO meta_description field

Media Images

Field	Description
Image ALT tag	The alt text for product images

Troubleshooting

• No languages showing in the picker: Make sure Shopify has at least one non-primary language enabled under Settings → Languages. Then click the Reload Languages button inside the column settings panel to refresh the list.
• Market scope options not appearing: Markets only show up if your store has Shopify Markets configured. If you don’t see market options, translation columns will apply globally to all markets.
• Translation not appearing on the storefront after sync: Confirm the language is published in Shopify (Settings → Languages). Unpublished languages can receive translation data, but translated content won’t appear to customers until the language is published.

You're ready!

Mixtable is an online spreadsheet designed to sync data with Shopify. It looks, feels, and behaves like Excel (including formulas), but runs in your browser. With Mixtable you can:

• Bulk add products to collections, edit metafields, add or remove tags;
• Change product prices, including international prices, and review price history;
• Manage customers with a spreadsheet CRM for Shopify;
• Use Excel features like sort ascending or descending, find-replace, filter, and more.

Best of all, you can sync changes back to Shopify with a single click. Find out more about the Mixtable suite of products here.