Lokalise is a project-based translation management system. A project is a collection of languages, keys, translations values, screenshots attached to these keys, contributors who have access to this project, as well as settings.

Usually a single project contains translations for a single application, website, or a game. We recommend keeping keys and translations for all platforms (for example, web and mobile) in a single project for your own convenience. Upload iOS, Android, frontend, backend, and API language files – everything that relates to a certain app or website – to the same project. We provide you with key merging or referencing options that help you avoid repetitive work for translators.

Every project belongs to exactly one Lokalise team. A team is a collection of projects, team users, and settings. Every team has a separate subscription plan.

With this in mind, we can construct a simple hierarchy:

You can see that a project belongs to a team, whereas keys belong to a single project, and can contain one or more translation values for different languages.

Every team member with proper access rights (owner, biller, admin) can create projects within a team. Lokalise allows you to create an unlimited number of projects but please be aware of other team quotas — specifically, the number of keys you can create.

To create a project, open the main dashboard and click New project:

Please note that every project is created from scratch and currently we do not provide a feature like "project templates". What you can do, however, is create a project snapshot and then restore it thus creating a project copy.

After pressing New project, you'll be asked to choose the project type:

Currently we support two types, namely Software localization and Documents. If your content is stored in text files like .docx, .pptx, .html, or .idml then choose the Documents type. If you are using files with a key-value format (.json, .yaml, .strings, .xlsx) then please choose Software localization. You can find all the supported file formats in the corresponding articles collection.

Also if you would like to set up GitHub, Bitbucket, Wordpress, and other integrations with third-party services, choose Software localization as well (unless the documentation for the given app states otherwise). Please note that you cannot change the type after the project is created.

Then you'll be presented with the following dialog:

Let's discuss the available options (most of these can be adjusted after the project is created):

Once you are ready, click Proceed and a new project will be created for you!

Each project has a unique alphanumeric ID that is generated for you upon project creation. Each project URL contains this ID, for example:

You can also find this ID in the project settings:

Please note that the project ID cannot be modified.

This ID is used when referring to a project with Lokalise API or CLI. If you are not planning to use these developer tools then most likely you won't need the project ID and knowing only its name should be enough.

That's a good question! The further steps will highly depend on what you are trying to achieve. Let's explore some options.

You might want to adjust your project settings. To achieve that, click More > Settings in the top menu:

Here you can change your project name, description, enable or disable additional features, create project snapshots (backups), set up automation rules, and perform other actions. Please check the Project settings article to learn more.

After project settings are adjusted, you will probably want to upload your content to start translating. To achieve that, proceed to the Upload page:

Here on this page you'll need to choose one or more files to upload and adjust the uploading settings. Please find detailed instructions in the corresponding article.

When creating the project, you have already chosen one base language and one or more target languages. Also, when you are uploading translation files, all missing languages will be created automatically in your project. However, you might still need to add even more languages and this is a very simple thing to do.

Click on the Languages dropdown and choose New language:

Then choose one or more languages from the dropdown and click Add:

Later you can adjust language settings as explained in the corresponding article.

Once you've uploaded one or more translation files, you can return to the project editor:

There's a lot going on here and it might take some time to get used to. We would recommend checking out the following article to learn about the editor and the features it provides for you.

One important question is: what happens once my translation file is uploaded to Lokalise? How my data will be stored and organized?

First of all, let's discuss some important terminology:

You can find more information on keys and platforms in the corresponding document.

So, what exactly is going to happen when you upload your translation files to Lokalise? We'll parse these files and extract all key-value pairs along with additional attributes (comments, descriptions, extra attributes). Based on the file format, keys will be assigned to the corresponding platforms.

If you are uploading a Word file then we'll split text into paragraphs, and each paragraph will act as a key. A similar thing will happen for other Document file types.

Keys and values will be displayed in the following way:

So, what's going on here?

Now we can create a simple hierarchy:

If you're working with a team, then you'll need to invite more people to the project, right? To achieve that, proceed to the Contributors page:

Here you'll be able to add one or more people to the project and adjust their access rights. Please find more info in the corresponding article.

Now that the contributors are invited, you'll probably want to assign some work to them. Therefore proceed to the Tasks page:

On this page you'll be able to create a new task, choose translations to include and contributors to assign this task to. Please find more information in the Tasks article.

If your content was initially hosted on a third-party platform, say GitHub repo, Wordpress website, or Zendesk Guide you'll probably need an easy way to perform content exchange. That's why we've introduced Lokalise apps that enable you to connect with numerous services and tools easily. To get started, proceed to the Apps page:

Choose one of the apps and install it! Please find more information on our apps in the corresponding section.

After you're done working with translations, you'll probably want to download them back to your project. Therefore, proceed to the Download page:

Here you'll need to choose an output file format, the language to include, and adjust other options. Please refer to the following article to learn more about file downloading and all the available options.

We archive inactive teams and the corresponding projects on a regular basis. However, all your data is still preserved: please check this article to learn more about this process and how you can unarchive your projects.