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Translating Audacity

Translating Audacity is the best way to get involved right in Audacity's UI without having to code.

Audacity is translated into multiple languages by volunteers across the world. You can contribute either using Transifex, or by using a local translation editor.

Using Transifex to translate Audacity

You can find and join the Audacity project at https://explore.transifex.com/audacity/audacity/

Click the JOIN THIS PROJECT button on the right side.
Select the language you would like to contribute to from the dropdown.
Click Join Project (if the language is Available to join) or Request Language if the language you want to contribute to is not available yet.

Once you have been approved as a translator you will receive a notification by email. After that you will see the project in your Dashboard and you can start to contribute.

Click Translate at the top right side
Select Audacity from the Resource Overview panel to start editing
Select the string to translate and type the corresponding translation

To speed up your workflow, various shortcuts are available, which you can see by pressing the overflow menu in the Transifex editor:

The most important one of these probably is Tab, which saves your string and automatically moves you onto the next.

And that's it! Happy translating!

Join the translator community

The translator community exists in two places:

If you have any questions, or want to get notified of upcoming releases in need of translation you can do so here.

Translate Audacity using a standalone application

Audacity uses GitHub and you can explore the available translations at

Each language translation is stored in a PO file. For example it.po is the Italian translation and ko.po is the Korean translation.

To download a PO file from GitHub click on the link for the .po file for your language. On the page you come to, right-click the Raw button and then select then Save target or Save link as. Select the location to place the PO file.

Use the wxWidgets file as a reference to the list of translated languages.

These are some programs you can use to edit PO files:

for Windows, macOS and Linux
for KDE4
for Windows and macOS (beta version)

The following instructions use poEdit 3.1.1 to illustrate the process of translation

If there is no translation PO file for your language create a new one using the following steps:

Download the file from Audacity GitHub
Open poEdit and select Create new... (Create new translation from POT Template)
Select the audacity.pot file and click on Open

Update an existing translation of Audacity

The following instructions use poEdit 3.1.1 to illustrate the process of translation

If you want to update an existing translation

Download the PO file for your language, for example it.po or open a previously translated PO file from your computer.
Download the file from Audacity GitHub
Open poEdit and select Browse files (Open and edit translation files)

Submitting a translation

To submit a translation, please send the completed .po file to the audacity-translation mailing list. A member of Audacity Team will commit the file and send a message to the list confirming this.

Test a translation in Audacity

You can get an up-to-date alpha version of Audacity, NOT suitable for production use, but good for checking translations on, in the nightly version: . From there, you’ll find there are choices of builds for different platforms. Download the right one for your platform.
On Windows, open the “Languages” directory inside the unzipped Audacity folder, then open the directory with the same name as your .po file. On Mac OS X, right-click or control-click over Audacity.app > Show Package Contents then open the relevant LPROJ directory inside the “Resources” directory. On GNU/Linux, open the relevant “locale” directory in usr/share/ or usr/local/share.
If creating a new translation, create a new directory for your language using the correct language code from the wxWidgets

Further information

Please read for more tips on translating the Audacity source code, and to learn how the Audacity software is translated.

Translating Audacity

Translating Audacity is the best way to get involved right in Audacity's UI without having to code.

Audacity is translated into multiple languages by volunteers across the world. You can contribute either using Transifex, or by using a local translation editor.

Using Transifex to translate Audacity

You can find and join the Audacity project at https://explore.transifex.com/audacity/audacity/

Click the JOIN THIS PROJECT button on the right side.
Select the language you would like to contribute to from the dropdown.
Click Join Project (if the language is Available to join) or Request Language if the language you want to contribute to is not available yet.

Once you have been approved as a translator you will receive a notification by email. After that you will see the project in your Dashboard and you can start to contribute.

Click Translate at the top right side
Select Audacity from the Resource Overview panel to start editing
Select the string to translate and type the corresponding translation

To speed up your workflow, various shortcuts are available, which you can see by pressing the overflow menu in the Transifex editor:

The most important one of these probably is Tab, which saves your string and automatically moves you onto the next.

And that's it! Happy translating!

Join the translator community

The translator community exists in two places:

If you have any questions, or want to get notified of upcoming releases in need of translation you can do so here.

Translate Audacity using a standalone application

Audacity uses GitHub and you can explore the available translations at

Each language translation is stored in a PO file. For example it.po is the Italian translation and ko.po is the Korean translation.

Use the wxWidgets file as a reference to the list of translated languages.

These are some programs you can use to edit PO files:

for Windows, macOS and Linux
for KDE4
for Windows and macOS (beta version)

The following instructions use poEdit 3.1.1 to illustrate the process of translation

If there is no translation PO file for your language create a new one using the following steps:

Download the file from Audacity GitHub
Open poEdit and select Create new... (Create new translation from POT Template)
Select the audacity.pot file and click on Open

Update an existing translation of Audacity

The following instructions use poEdit 3.1.1 to illustrate the process of translation

If you want to update an existing translation

Download the PO file for your language, for example it.po or open a previously translated PO file from your computer.
Download the file from Audacity GitHub
Open poEdit and select Browse files (Open and edit translation files)

Submitting a translation

To submit a translation, please send the completed .po file to the audacity-translation mailing list. A member of Audacity Team will commit the file and send a message to the list confirming this.

Test a translation in Audacity

You can get an up-to-date alpha version of Audacity, NOT suitable for production use, but good for checking translations on, in the nightly version: . From there, you’ll find there are choices of builds for different platforms. Download the right one for your platform.
On Windows, open the “Languages” directory inside the unzipped Audacity folder, then open the directory with the same name as your .po file. On Mac OS X, right-click or control-click over Audacity.app > Show Package Contents then open the relevant LPROJ directory inside the “Resources” directory. On GNU/Linux, open the relevant “locale” directory in usr/share/ or usr/local/share.
If creating a new translation, create a new directory for your language using the correct language code from the wxWidgets

Further information

Please read for more tips on translating the Audacity source code, and to learn how the Audacity software is translated.