If you're new to Lokalise projects, we recommend reviewing the Projects article, particularly the section on how platforms, keys, and files are organized, to understand how your data is structured.
In this article we'll talk about creating and modifying translation keys, and cover all the actions that can be applied to the keys.
Key actions
Some key actions may be unavailable depending on the project type or user permissions.
When you open a Lokalise project for editing, the project editor displays a list of translation keys along with their translations, screenshots, and attributes.
Under each key name, several buttons allow you to perform quick key-related actions:
Comments – collaboration often involves discussions on specific keys. You can leave comments for keys or individual translations, notify contributors, and start threads. More details are available in the Comments article.
Clipboard (key details) – opens a modal showing advanced key details, including the key name, Lokalise key ID, direct link to the key in the editor, and the reference key placeholder. The key ID is useful when working with Lokalise via API or CLI.
Screenshots – attach one or multiple screenshots to a key. For more details, check the Screenshot manager section.
Duplicate this key – creates a copy of the key with the same attributes.
Google-translate empty values – automatically fills all empty values of the key with machine translations from Google. This may take a few moments depending on the content volume. To apply machine translation to multiple keys, you can create a translation order, set up an automation rule, or a workflow.
Hide from contributors – makes the key invisible to all contributors and translators who do not have Manage keys permission within the project.
Delete key – permanently removes the key and all related translations. This action cannot be undone, so it's recommended to create a project snapshot beforehand.
Linking platforms
This feature is available only in Web and mobile projects.
Lokalise supports four platforms: iOS, Android, Web, and Other. When a key is assigned to one or more platforms, it will only be included in platform-specific file formats during export.
For example, if a key is assigned to iOS, it will appear in Apple Strings and Apple XLIFF file exports but will be excluded from JSON exports, which belong to the Web platform.
Each key can be linked to one filename per platform. To adjust this setting, open the key editor, click the key name, go to the Advanced tab, and modify the Assigned to a file field.
Assigning tags
For more details, refer to the Tags article.
Tags help organize and group translation keys logically within Lokalise. To assign a tag, click the tag icon next to a key. You can either create a new tag or select from existing tags.
Key editor
This feature is available only in Web and mobile projects.
The key editor allows you to modify key names, descriptions, plural forms, assigned filenames, and other attributes. To access the key editor, click on a key name in the project editor.
Only contributors with Manage keys permission can edit translation keys. Additionally, key editing can be globally disabled in project settings by setting Allow key editing to Disabled.
You can also open the key editor by clicking Add key or pressing Ctrl+K. This will open a new key editor with default settings, allowing you to create a key from scratch. To create a copy of an existing key, click the Duplicate key icon next to the key name and modify only the necessary fields.
Once you've finished editing, click Save or press Ctrl+Enter to confirm the changes.
General options
Key name — enter a unique name for the key. While multiple keys cannot share the same name, you can have similar key names assigned to different platforms or contexts (context is set under Advanced options). You can also enable Per-platform key names to assign different names for each platform.
Base language value — the translation value for the base language. This field can be left empty.
Run automations when saving this key — enables automations during key creation.
Platforms — specify which platforms the key is associated with. Different platforms use different file export formats, and a key can be assigned to one or multiple platforms.
Description — add details about the key. Descriptions are visible to project contributors and can be used to provide additional context to AI Suggestions.
Tags — assign existing tags or create new ones to help with filtering and exporting.
Add another key — keeps the dialog window open after clicking Create, useful when adding or editing multiple keys in a row.
Once everything is set, click Create or press
Ctrl+Enterto save the changes.
Advanced options
This key requires plural forms — enable this option if the key requires pluralization. Lokalise will automatically generate the necessary plural forms for each language, but they can be further adjusted in Language settings.
Hide from contributors — restricts visibility of the key to contributors with the Manage keys permission only.
Context — used in some file formats, such as
.po. This field should be left empty unless context is explicitly used in the source code. Adding context allows the creation of multiple keys with the same name.Character limit — translations are unlimited by default, but a limit can be set by entering a number in this field. Once defined, translators will not be able to exceed the specified length. Existing translations will not be automatically trimmed. More details are available in the Character limit article.
Custom attributes
Custom attributes allow you to define format-specific options for a key. These attributes help control how keys behave in different export formats.
For example, in Android Resources (XML) files, you can set the translatable attribute to false if the key should not be translated.
Custom attributes vary depending on the file format and can be configured as needed for platform-specific behavior.
Screenshots manager
Check the Screenshots and Filter by screenshots articles to learn more about this feature.
To access the screenshot manager, click the Screenshots button under a key name in the project editor.
You'll be presented with the dialog where you can manage screenshots for the current key:
This feature is available only to contributors with the Manage screenshots permission.
Linked screenshots
In this tab, you will see all screenshots linked to the key. When a screenshot is linked, it appears under the key name in the project editor.
Each screenshot includes:
Name
Tags
Preview image
Three action buttons:
Open in screenshot editor – navigate to the editor to adjust screenshot settings.
Preview – view the image in full size, with a highlighted portion of the linked text.
Unlink – remove the connection between the screenshot and the key (the screenshot itself remains in the project). Multiple screenshots can be unlinked at once by selecting them and clicking Unlink selected.
Link existing screenshot
You can link a key to previously uploaded screenshots.
Use the Filter dropdown to filter screenshots by tags or linked keys (by default, all screenshots are displayed).
Use the Search box to find a screenshot by name.
For each screenshot, you’ll see its name, tags, preview, number of linked keys, and the following actions:
Open in screenshot editor – navigate to the editor to modify the screenshot settings.
Preview – view the image in full size with highlighted linked text.
Link – connect the screenshot to the current key. You can also select multiple screenshots by clicking on their previews and pressing Link selected.
Upload screenshot
When you upload a screenshot, it is automatically linked to the current key. You can drag and drop images into the designated area or select a file manually from your computer.
Enable the Try to detect keys automatically option to allow Lokalise to scan the uploaded image and detect the base translation value. If successful, Lokalise will highlight the text’s exact position on the screenshot.
When viewing the screenshot in the project editor, a blue outline will indicate the detected translation value.
Automatic detection may not work on low-quality screenshots. If needed, you can manually highlight text areas. See the Screenshots article for more details.
Translation controls
Each translation field in Lokalise has several buttons next to it, providing different translation-related functionalities and notifications.
Spelling/grammar error
Lokalise automatically checks spelling and grammar as translations are uploaded or updated. If an issue is found, an orange icon appears next to the translation field. Click the icon to review the detected issue.
QA issues
Quality assurance (QA) checks can be enabled in project settings. If a QA rule is violated, a red icon will appear next to the translation. Click the icon to view details about the issue.
Comments
Click the speech bubble icon to open a comments widget and leave translation-level comments.
Custom translation statuses
Custom translation statuses (CTS) can be enabled in project settings. When active, you can assign custom statuses to translations by clicking the CTS icon. These statuses can later be used as filters.
Mark as reviewed
Contributors with the Review permission can approve translations by clicking the glasses icon. The Reviewing feature must be enabled in project settings for this option to be available.
Mark as unverified
The Unverified flag can be used to mark translations that may not be 100% correct. You can later filter translations to show only unverified strings.
Translation history
Lokalise keeps a history of all translation updates, allowing you to revert to a previous version at any time.