Easily import and export content between Contentful and Lokalise

Limited support for RichText capabilities

Can be installed separately in different spaces, environments and aliases

Supports both US and EU data centers

Open Contentful and navigate to the Apps section.

Select Marketplace, then choose the Translation and Localization category.

Find Lokalise and click on it:

Press Install.

Select the environment where you want to install the app. The Lokalise app works with any environment, but it can only be installed in one environment at a time:

After selecting the environment, you'll be prompted to connect to Lokalise. Click Connect.

A new browser tab will open for the connection process (keep the original tab open; you’ll need it in a moment). Review the requested permissions and click Allow access:

You should see a confirmation message that the plugin has been authorized. Now it's safe to close the new tab.

Go back to the original tab where the Contentful app is still open. Select the content types that should display the Lokalise app in the Contentful entry Editor or Compose app sidebar, and click Install in the top right corner:

Review the default settings and click Save in the top right corner.

The app is installed and visible in Contentful, and the connected content is visible in Lokalise Content management.

The user who installed the app is a member of the connected Lokalise project and has permissions to create keys and manage languages.

Only enable the plugin for content types that you actually plan to localize. If a content type is not enabled, its content will not be available for export or import through the app.

After installation, allow time for the initial cache refresh to complete before testing imports or exports.

Make sure locale codes match exactly in Contentful and Lokalise. For example, if Contentful uses es, using es_ES in Lokalise will not work as an equivalent.

After adding new locales, refresh the connected content in Lokalise.

After refreshing locales, reopen the Contentful Native app configuration in Contentful and click Save again to ensure the latest locale configuration is applied.

The Refresh option is only available in Marketing and support project types.

If you're using a Web and mobile project type, please reach out to our support team. We'll be able to trigger the Refresh for you or guide you through it.

If you installed the Lokalise app before alias support was introduced (end of February 2025), you must reinstall it to enable alias support.

If you don’t use aliases, the app will continue working as before—no changes or extra steps required.

If you need alias support, you must install the Lokalise app while operating under the correct alias in Contentful Native.

Switching an alias affects export/import direction.
If you point an alias to a different environment, Lokalise will start exporting all translations only to that new environment. Same goes for imports — Lokalise will only pull translations from the environment currently tied to that alias.

No need to reinstall if the alias name stays the same.
As long as the alias name doesn’t change, you don’t need to reinstall the Lokalise app. You can switch the alias to a new environment and keep everything running smoothly. The connection remains valid.

Previously exported entries remain linked.

When switching an alias to point to a new environment (e.g. from master-1 to master-2), all entries previously exported to Lokalise will stay linked and retrievable. Lokalise uses a stable internal LinkId that persists across environment changes under the same alias. This means you can continue translating and syncing without needing to re-export entries — even after the alias is repointed.

Reinstallation is required if the alias name changes.
If you change the alias name itself (not just the environment it’s pointing to), you’ll need to reinstall the Lokalise app to re-establish the connection with the new alias.

contentful-native – identifies the keys exported via the Contentful Native app.

[Page] ... – shows the title of the entry that was initially exported to Lokalise.

Translations exist for every locale you plan to import.

The translated content contains valid HTML where applicable.

The translated values comply with Contentful field validations, such as character limits or other model-level restrictions.

If you are importing multiple locales at once, only include locales that are ready. In some cases, Contentful may accept or reject the import as a batch.

Make sure you are importing into the correct entry. The corresponding top-level entry should be present in Lokalise and should match the Contentful entry you originally exported.

Open the entry you want to update in Contentful.

In the Lokalise sidebar section, select the locales you want to import.

A dialog will appear showing a preview of the translations. Review the changes and click Import from Lokalise to update the translations in Contentful.

Base locale only – import just the base language version of the entry.

All locales – import both base and target languages for the entry.

Localization is not enabled for the field: Non-localized fields cannot be imported to Lokalise because Contentful won't accept translations for them. Check the section below for details on how to enable localization.

The field type isn't text-based: Only the following text-based field types can be exported to Lokalise:

The entry is archived: Translations cannot be updated for archived entries.

Go to the Content model tab.

Click the name of the desired item.

Select Edit for the field you want to configure.

Check the Enable localization of this field option.

Don’t forget to save your changes!

Navigate to the Content model tab in Contentful.

Click on your desired content type and go to the Sidebar section.

Add the Lokalise plugin to the sidebar.

Don’t forget to save your changes.

Separate content by translation method (e.g. AI, human, or hybrid)

Apply unique permissions or automation rules for different types of content

Contentful tags become the routing mechanism. You can assign a tag like AI translation or Human review to any entry.

In the Lokalise app settings (on Contentful site), you can link each tag to a specific Lokalise project. You can either select an existing project or create a new one. If you create a new project during this step, it will be generated automatically for you.

When you export a tagged entry, the app detects the assigned tag and routes the content to the linked Lokalise project.

Click Add project connection to link more tags to Lokalise projects.

Click Open in Lokalise to navigate directly to the connected project.

To disconnect a project, click the More button and choose the appropriate option from the dropdown menu.

If the entry has only one tag linked to a Lokalise project, the content will be exported there automatically.

If the entry has multiple tags linked to different projects, the plugin will prompt you to choose one.

If the entry has no linked tags, you must select a tag before proceeding. Exporting without a valid tag is not possible, as the plugin won’t know which project to use.

Create new tags

Rename existing tags

Delete unused tags (only if they’re not assigned to any entries)

If you update Contentful tags in bulk, refresh cached items before exporting or importing affected entries.

Lokalise uses the Contentful tag ID internally. Because of this, renaming a tag in Contentful does not change the internal linkage to the connected Lokalise project.

As a best practice, assign only one Lokalise-linked tag per entry whenever possible. This reduces the risk of conflicting exports and ambiguous imports.

In Contentful, go to Apps > Installed apps > Lokalise > Configure.

Under the list of connected projects, disconnect each tag by clicking More > Disconnect from Contentful.
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Once all project links are removed, you’ll see the option to switch back to single project mode.
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When prompted, select an existing Lokalise project to reconnect, or create a new one.

Let’s say you had a Lokalise project called Contentful Blank, and in there you had a translation key for your entry with the value "Hello".

Later, you enabled multi-project support and assigned that same Contentful entry to a new Lokalise project called AI translation.

The new AI project updates the translation to "Hi". Now:

The Lokalise value for that key is still "Hello".

If you export translations from Contentful Blank back to Contentful, the value in Contentful will revert from "Hi" to "Hello"

You’ll be prompted to select a single tag before export.

The content will only be sent to the selected project.

The entry will be sent to all linked Lokalise projects, potentially creating conflicting translations.

When importing back into Contentful, you’ll be asked to choose which Lokalise project to pull translations from.

Example: If an entry has two tags — one linked to Project A, another to Project B — and you export it via bulk action, it will be exported to both projects. However, during import, you’ll need to choose whether to pull translations from Project A or Project B.

When no tag is assigned — the entry will not be exported, even if the Contentful UI says the export was successful.

When multiple tags are assigned — the entry will be exported to all connected Lokalise projects.

No prompt to choose a tag — the plugin cannot prompt you to pick one project during bulk exports, which increases the risk of duplicate or conflicting translations. For full control, we strongly recommend exporting from the entry sidebar instead.

Permissions and access: Each project has its own contributor list. You’ll need to manually add collaborators and define their roles for every new project.

Automations and settings: Automations such as tag-based triggers, workflows, and integrations (e.g., webhooks) won’t carry over. These need to be recreated per project.

Tasks and content linkage: Tasks don’t transfer across projects. If entries or keys were translated in an original project, but now belong to a new project via a different tag, those translations won’t be imported into Contentful unless the content is reprocessed in the new project.

Create a new Contentful tag for those entries.

Link that tag to a new Lokalise project.

Assign the tag to the relevant entries in Contentful.

Set up only that new project with the required configurations.

If User A installed the Lokalise integration in your Contentful space, and then User B sets up multiple projects (via new tags), the new Lokalise projects are created under User A’s ownership.

That means User B might not have access to those new Lokalise projects and will see an error when trying to open them in Lokalise.

Ideally, have the Lokalise team owner set up the Contentful integration and manage project creation.

Or, make sure the person setting up the multi-project flow coordinates with the team owner/admin in Lokalise to manually assign the right access to any newly created projects.

Only one of the duplicate keys is typically connected to Contentful as the active key.

In practice, the active key is often the one created most recently.

To investigate duplicates, search for the component ID in Lokalise and compare which entries contain keys with that ID.

The plugin only supports one export process and one import process at a time.

In the Contentful content list UI, bulk selection is limited, so large jobs should be processed in batches.

Bulk import/export from the Contentful content list does not handle referenced content the same way as the sidebar workflow.

When using the sidebar app, wait for the operation to reach Done before starting another one. There may be a short delay between the UI status and the actual completion of the background processing.

Cross-space references are not supported.

Automated export and import processes are not supported.

Only field-based localization is supported.

Images and other assets cannot be localized via Lokalise.

Fields containing Markdown markup will be imported as plain text, without Lokalise placeholders.

Lokalise automations are always enabled when exporting from Contentful to Lokalise via the native app. Therefore, you might want to review or remove the relevant automations in the connected Lokalise project.