This feature is available from the Essential plan and above.
Sometimes translators prefer to work offline using their own CAT tools. Instead of giving them full download/upload rights, you can use the Offline Translation feature. This allows translators to download translations as XLIFF files, work on them offline, and then upload the updated files back into the project.
Getting started
To begin using the offline translation feature, a project admin needs to enable it in the project settings. Follow these steps:
Click More > Settings in the top menu.
Go to the General tab.
Under the Miscellaneous section, check the Offline translation option.
Save the changes.
Once enabled, all users will see the offline translation widget in the editor while in bilingual editing mode.
To switch to the bilingual view:
Use the controls to select Bilingual View.
Choose the source and target languages from the dropdown menus.
Downloading and uploading XLIFF
From the offline translation widget, users can:
Download all as XLIFF: Download an XLIFF file with all translations for the selected target language. The file will include links to screenshots, key descriptions, and translation statuses.
Download filtered as XLIFF: Download an XLIFF file for translations of filtered keys. This option is available only when a filter is applied.
Upload translated XLIFF: Upload an XLIFF file with translations back into the project. This action replaces existing translations with those from the uploaded file, but the filename and platform attributes related to keys will remain unchanged.
Special notes
Offline translation in tasks
When offline translation is enabled, every task you create will include Download XLIFF and Upload XLIFF buttons on the Tasks page:
The translations you download will include all languages in a single ZIP file.
Offline translation with branching
If your project uses branching, note that XLIFF files can only be uploaded to the branch from which they were downloaded. For example, a file downloaded from branch_a can only be uploaded back to branch_a, not to branch_b.
Offline translation and Trados Studio
If you’re using Trados Studio, it’s recommended to enable the Do not store segmentation information in the translated file option. This setting is found under Options > File types > XLIFF > Settings. Without this, the XLIFF file may not import properly into Lokalise.
This option is available on both a general and project level. For project-level settings, go to Project settings > File types > XLIFF > Settings.
Downloading XLIFF files for multiple languages
Currently, it’s not possible to download XLIFF files for multiple languages at once through the Lokalise UI. However, you can achieve this using the Download files API endpoint, where you can specify offline_xliff as the format.
Offline translation statuses
When using the Offline Translation feature, you download XLIFF files to work on specific translation or review tasks offline, and then upload those back. Lokalise handles different translation statuses within these XLIFF files to ensure everything stays in sync when they’re uploaded back into the project.
For example, your translation tags might have statuses like this:
<source>source text</source>
<target state="translated">target translation</target>
Lokalise processes these states automatically, ensuring your workflow stays consistent. For more details on how these statuses work, refer to the XLIFF article.
Important notes on statuses and tasks
This section explains how Lokalise manages various translation statuses when files are uploaded as part of a task.
Translation tasks: A task is marked as completed when a translation change happens, such as going from an empty to a non-empty translation, or updating an old translation to a new one.
Review tasks: Not all translations need to be changed for the task to be completed.
If translations are updated, Lokalise will mark them as reviewed and completed.
If no changes are made, but the translation is marked as "final" and "signed-off" in the XLIFF file, Lokalise will still treat these translations as reviewed and completed (see the statuses table for more details).
Source verification
Matched source: If the source in Lokalise matches the source in the uploaded XLIFF file, the translations are marked as verified.
Mismatched source: If the source in Lokalise doesn’t match the XLIFF source, translations are marked as unverified and will need to go through the next re-translation cycle to align with the updated source.
By adding the "final" and "signed-off" states via XLIFF, translations will also be marked as reviewed. Here are two examples to illustrate how this works:
Source matches: Translations are reviewed and verified.
Source doesn't match: Translations are reviewed but unverified.
Additional reading