Translating a store once is the easy part. Products change every week, and each edit to a title or description leaves the translated version describing the old product. This guide covers how Shopify flags stale translations, what its automatic translation will and will not update, and a routine for staying current.
How translations go stale
A translation is stored against a piece of your default-language content. When you change the original, the translation does not change with it. Shopify marks it with the status Outdated, which its help center defines as: the content in the default language has been updated, but the translations do not reflect any updates.
- Edited product copy: The translation still describes the old version
- New products: No translation exists, so Shopify shows your default language
- Theme updates: Shopify keeps your custom translations and marks translations for changed content as outdated
What Shopify's automatic translation updates
Shopify's Translate & Adapt app can translate automatically. According to its help page, automatic translation adds translations for untranslated content and updates machine translations that are out of date. It does not change translations you added or edited manually.
| Content | Automatic translation |
|---|---|
| Untranslated content | Added |
| Out-of-date machine translations | Updated |
| Translations you wrote or edited | Left as they are |
| Legal policies | Not translated, you do these manually |
| URL handles | Not included, you add each one manually |
That third row is the one to remember. If you corrected a translation by hand and the product then changes, your correction stays, and it may now be wrong.
It is not continuous by default
Shopify says stores in most countries can auto-translate up to 2 languages besides the default, and new translations are added only when you click the button again for each language. In some countries, an Auto-sync option translates content weekly instead.
- Language slots: Once a language uses an automatic translation slot, removing the language does not free the slot
- Review: Shopify describes its AI translations as a starting point to review before you publish
- More languages: Add them manually or with a compatible third-party app
A routine that holds up
Syncing is a habit more than a feature. Tie translation to the moments your content changes.
- ✅ Check for outdated and missing translations after each product launch or bulk edit
- ✅ Re-check manual translations whenever the original copy changes
- ✅ Review policies by hand when you change them
- ✅ Keep a glossary so re-translations use the same terms. See building a translation glossary
- ❌ Publishing a language and never opening it again
For a bulk view, Shopify lets you export your translations as a CSV from Settings, then Languages. If a field is not in that file, Shopify says it is not translatable. Page titles and meta descriptions go stale the same way. See translating SEO titles and descriptions.
Doing this at scale
LinguaFlow drafts AI translations for each language you add and applies your brand glossary and tone rules, so repeated terms stay consistent. You review and edit before publishing, and it publishes through Shopify's native Translations API with no theme edits, with an audit log and rollback. See LinguaFlow.