Bulk actions

You can apply various bulk actions to the selected keys.

Ilya Krukowski avatar
Written by Ilya Krukowski
Updated over a week ago

Bulk actions menu enables you to apply an action to multiple translation keys in one go.

Applying a bulk action

To apply a bulk action to multiple translation keys, first select these keys in the project editor. To select one or more translation keys, tick a checkbox next to them. To select all keys in the current project scope, tick the checkbox in the project menu next to the Filter dropdown:

A blue floating popup with all the available bulk actions will be shown once you select at least one key:

Available actions

  • Create a task — choosing this action will open a task creation page with a predefined task scope limited to the keys you have just selected.

  • Order translation — request professional translation services for the chosen keys. You'll need to pick one of the translation providers, the target languages, and provide the payment method.

  • Invite to review center — invite new contributors to review the chosen translation keys. Please learn more about this feature in the review center article.

  • Duplicate — create copies of the chosen keys in the current project.

  • Copy/move to project — create copies or move the chosen keys to another project that you have access to. Please note that:

    • If the Include all languages was not enabled, it will copy only the languages that are found in both projects.

    • If the Include all languages option was enabled, it will push all languages from source to target and create any missing languages in the target project.

  • File: assign — assign the chosen keys to a translation file.

  • File: unassign — unassign the chosen keys from all translation files.

  • Tags: add/remove — add or remove tags to/from the multiple keys in your project. You can enter a new tag or select an existing one from a list of tags you have previously added.

  • Platform: link/unlink — link or unlink the platform to/from the selected keys.

  • Unverified: set/unset — add or remove an "unverified" translation status. The "unverified" status usually means that you do not consider a translation to be 100% correct.

  • Context: set/unset — context is used with some file formats (for example, .po). There is no need to add the context if you are not using it in your code.

  • Review: set/unset — add or remove the "reviewed" status to/from the chosen translation keys. If a key is marked as "reviewed", it usually means that the second linguist has checked and proofread a translation. Please note that the review feature has to be explicitly enabled in the project settings.

  • Custom translation statuses: set/unset — add or remove custom translation statuses (CTS) to/from your translations. Please note that the CTS feature has to be explicitly enabled in the project settings.

  • Hide/unhide from contributors — hide keys from contributors/translators or make them visible again. If a key is hidden, only the project admins will be able to view and modify it.

  • Character limit: set/unset — provide a character limit for the chosen translation values or remove these limits. Please note that if the chosen translations are longer than the provided limits, they won't be automatically trimmed.

  • Screenshots — manage screenshots for the chosen keys. You can link/unlink the screenshots or upload the new ones.

  • Copy keys to translations — set the chosen key names as the translation values for the chosen languages. Please check the Applying bulk actions on a per-language basis to learn how to choose languages.

  • Copy source to target — copy the base language value (when in multilingual view) or the source language value (when in bilingual view) to the selected languages.

  • Apply TM to — apply translation memory matches to the chosen translations while providing a TM threshold. Please note that this threshold is the minimum match and Lokalise will try to fetch the highest match it can find in TM. For example, if you enter 98% it means that first Lokalise will try to find a 100% match, then (if the previous attempt failed) it will look for 99% match, and finally it'll try to find 98% match.

  • Cross-reference languages — once you are done setting up key references in the base language, it's a good idea to cross-reference all other languages by choosing this action.

  • Clear translations — clear translations for the chosen languages by setting their values to "empty".

  • Fill with text — fill translation values for the chosen languages with a given text.

  • Pseudolocalize — apply pseudolocalization to the chosen translation values. Pseudolocalization is a software testing method used for testing the internationalization aspects of software. Instead of translating the text of the software into a foreign language, as in the process of localization, the textual elements of an application are replaced with an altered version of the original language.

  • Restore to the last translation historytranslation history keeps track of all the modifications for the translation values, and you can roll back your translations to any of the previously saved versions. Using this bulk action, you can revert all the chosen translations to the previous history state.

  • Show selected — display all the chosen key names in a separate dialog box.

  • Archive/unarchive — archive or unarchive keys. If a key is archived, it won't be shown in the project editor by default. To view such keys, you should adjust the filter with the following condition: "Key — is archived".

  • Delete — delete all the chosen keys and their translations. You cannot undo this action therefore you might want to create a project snapshot before deleting keys in bulk.

Applying bulk actions on a per-language basis

You can apply bulk actions only to certain languages. To achieve that, choose the desired project languages in the dropdown:

Then choose translation keys to apply a bulk action to. You'll notice that it says how many languages will be affected:

Languages that were not selected won't be affected. By default bulk actions won't be applied to the base language. Tick the corresponding checkbox to include base language:

Please note that some actions cannot be applied to the base language (like Apply TM to).

Automatic snapshots on bulk actions

Automatic snapshots for bulk actions feature is available starting from the Essential plan.

Once you apply a bulk action, a project snapshot can be automatically captured for you. To enable this feature, proceed to More > Settings > Snapshots and enable the Automatic snapshot on bulk actions option:

To view the list of all bulk actions that trigger snapshot creation, please refer to the Snapshots documentation.

Bulk undo

This feature is currently in open beta.

How does it work

Creating automatic snapshots on every bulk action might be a time-consuming process. Instead, you can take advantage of the bulk undo feature that basically cancels the applied action and reverts the chosen keys to the state before the bulk action was performed.

In fact, this feature has been introduced to replace automatic snapshots and optimize the process of cancelling certain actions. The undo feature is available for 30 days after the action has been performed.

Bulk undo is currently supported for the following actions:

  • Copy keys to translations

  • Copy source to target

  • Apply TM to

  • Clear translations

  • Fill with text

  • Pseudolocalize

Enabling bulk undo

To use this feature, you don't need to enable the Automatic snapshot on bulk actions. Instead, proceed to your project settings and enable the Undo bulk action feature under the Miscellaneous section:

Please note that after bulk undo is enabled, the automatic snapshots on bulk actions will be disabled for the current project.

Bulk undo in action

For example, let's use the Pseudolocalize action on these two keys:

Now we would like to revert this action. To achieve that, open More > Activity:

Expand Undoable processes, find the process related to your bulk action, and click Undo:

Every applied bulk action has a separate Undo button. Please note that pressing on this button will revert the affected keys to the state before the action was applied. It means that if you've made any further changes to the translations after applying the bulk action, these changes will be lost.

Then simply click Yes, undo:

Now you'll find a new entry under the Finished processes:

Special notes for bulk actions

  • Please note that certain bulk actions (Apply TM, Tags: add/remove, Delete key) are performed in the background. It means that you will see a small notification message saying that the action is queued and it might take some time to complete.

  • After a translation-level bulk action is applied, translation statuses will be automatically set to unverified and not reviewed. Custom translation statuses won't be affected.

  • Certain bulk actions ignore language filtering and cannot be applied on a per-translation basis. Only the following actions can be applied on a translation level:

    • Unverified: set/unset

    • Review: set/unset

    • Custom translation statuses: set/unset

    • Copy keys to translations

    • Copy source to target

    • Apply TM to

    • Clear translations

    • Fill with text

    • Pseudolocalize

    • Restore to the last translation history

  • Please note that Select all will mark all the keys that are included in the current scope. For example, if you've filtered keys by tags and then clicked Select all, only the filtered keys will be selected. If you want to select all project keys, you'll have to reset the filter first:

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