Translate your store automatically

The Translations tab translates your Shopify store into other languages and keeps the translations up to date: when the original changes, the translations follow. Use it when you want shoppers to read your pages, blog posts and products in their own language.

Before you start

• Connect your store and add it as a brand in the SEO Tool. See Connect your Shopify store and Set up the SEO Tool.
• Give the SEO Tool a language model. See Connect your own AI model, or add one in the SEO Tool settings. Without one, the page warns that nothing can be translated yet.
• Add the languages you want in Shopify admin under Settings, Languages. You can only pick languages the store already has.
• If you connected your store before translations were available, reconnect it once on the Connections page so Pinned may add translations. If a permission is missing, the Translations tab tells you.

Open the Translations tab

1. In the sidebar, click SEO Tool.
2. Under Brands, click your store.
3. Click the Translations tab.

   

The Getting started card at the top lists the steps below and marks each finished one done. It goes away once both are finished.

Pick your languages

1. Under Languages, tick each language you want your store translated into.
2. Click Save languages.

Your store's original language is never changed and is not listed. Some labels you may see next to a language:

• not published yet: the language is translated ahead of time, so it is ready the day you publish it in Shopify.
• not in the store: you picked it earlier, but the store no longer has it. Nothing is translated into it until you add it in Shopify admin under Settings, Languages. Untick it and save if you no longer want it.

If the store has only one language, the page tells you to add another in Shopify admin, then reload the page.

If Pinned can't read your store's languages, you see a field labeled Languages (comma separated) instead of checkboxes, with a message explaining why. This is what the screenshot above shows. The hint in the field reads "Spanish, French". Type language names or codes, and leave out the store's own language. If the message mentions a missing permission, reconnect the store on the Connections page.

Turn on auto-translate

1. Under Auto-translate, tick Translate automatically. New and changed content is translated within about an hour. Everything already in your store is translated over the first runs.

2. Under What to translate, tick the kinds of content you want. Until you save for the first time, all of them are ticked.

   Option	What it covers
   Pages	Your pages (About, Contact, FAQ…): title, content and search listing, plus the home page's title and description.
   Blog posts & blog titles	Published posts and each blog's own title. Drafts wait until they are published.
   Products	Active products: title, description and search listing. Options, variants and prices stay as they are.
   Collections	Title, description and search listing.
   Navigation menus	The names of the links in your header, footer and other menus.
   Theme content	Your live theme's headings, buttons and banners. Links, images, colors and code stay as they are.

3. Under Model, choose one:

   • Quality. Uses your workspace's model. It gives the most natural wording and costs more.
   • Economy. Uses the cheaper model of the same provider. It suits product and menu text, and reads a little plainer in long articles.

4. Under Links, decide whether to tick the option labeled Keep readers in their language. When it's on, links inside translated text point to the same language, like /es/products/… instead of /products/…, if the store has a web address for that language. If the store hasn't let Pinned see those addresses, links stay as they are and the page says so.

5. In Daily token budget, enter how many tokens auto-translate may use in 24 hours. The field accepts 20,000 to 50,000,000. As a guide, a 1,000-word post takes about 4,000 tokens per language, and a product with a short description takes a few hundred. The field also shows how many tokens were used in the last 24 hours.

6. Click Save auto-translate.

The first run starts straight away. When the budget is used up, auto-translate stops for the day and carries on by itself later.

Run it by hand

Under the settings are three buttons:

• Translate now starts a run instead of waiting for the next hourly one.
• Rescan everything checks every item in the store again and translates anything missing or out of date.
• Retry all failed gives every failed item a fresh set of tries. The button shows how many have failed.

Translate now and Rescan everything are greyed out while Translate automatically is off. Retry all failed is greyed out when nothing has failed.

Read the status

The Status section shows four tiles:

• Languages: how many languages you picked, and which.
• Translations live: one per item and language.
• Needs attention: how many items failed, and how many are in progress.
• Last run: when auto-translate last ran and what it did.

Notes appear under the tiles when something needs a look, such as a language the store doesn't have yet, or a kind of content that was skipped.

The Coverage table shows each kind of content against each language. Each cell shows how many items are translated, or "not started". It also flags failed items, items in progress, translations made elsewhere, and items kept in the original language. A language you no longer pick, but that still has translations, stays in the table marked "(no longer picked)".

Fix items that failed

Items that couldn't be translated are listed under Needs attention, with the language and what went wrong. Auto-translate tries each one three times, then waits until the original changes. For each item you can:

• Click Try again to send it straight back.
• Click the keep button, which reads "Keep in" followed by your store's original language (for example, Keep in English), to stop translating it into that language. A translation already in Shopify stays. To show the original instead, delete that translation in Translate & Adapt.

If more items failed than the list shows, the page says so. Retry all failed covers every one.

The Recently translated list shows the latest translations and has the same keep button on each one. Items you keep untranslated move to a list headed "Kept in" followed by your original language. Click Translate again there to start translating an item again.

Tips

• Translations are added through Shopify's translation system. You can see and edit every one in Translate & Adapt, and your original content is never changed.
• If you edit a translation in Translate & Adapt, your edit is kept until the original text changes. If you delete one there, that part stays in the original until the original changes.
• Web addresses (handles), policies, email templates, theme settings, app embeds and default theme content are never translated. Images stay as they are.
• Draft and archived products are skipped. Drafts and unpublished posts are translated once they are published.
• An article you localized by hand keeps that version.
• Shopify lets a theme hold at most 3,400 translations per language. On a very large theme, some items may fail with Shopify's "Too many translation keys" message.

Troubleshooting

When auto-translate can't go on, a red message appears at the top of the page. Fix the cause, then click Translate now.

Paused: today's token budget is used up

It carries on by itself as the 24 hours move on. To continue now, raise Daily token budget and click Save auto-translate.

Paused: the store hasn't given Pinned permission

The message names the missing permissions. Reconnect the store on the Connections page, then click Translate now.

Paused: there is no working language model

Add or fix the model in the SEO Tool settings, then click Translate now.

Paused: no languages are picked

Tick at least one language under Languages and click Save languages.

Paused: none of the languages picked is in the store

Add the language in Shopify admin under Settings, Languages (unpublished is fine), then click Translate now.

Paused after an error

Click Translate now to try again. If the same error comes back, check the store connection on the Connections page and the model in the SEO Tool settings.

The language model didn't answer on the last run

This note appears under the status tiles. Auto-translate tries again on its own.

Links aren't pointing to the translated pages

The store may not have let Pinned see its language web addresses yet. Reconnect it on the Connections page, then click Translate now.