How to Translate All Missing Cells at Once

When your project has gaps in multiple locales and you don't want to click ✨ on every row, run Translate all missing with AI from the command palette. One pass fills every empty or copy-paste cell across every non-base locale.

Opening the dialog#

1. Press ⌘P to open the command palette.

2. Pick Translate all missing with AI (or type translate to filter).

3. The dialog computes what's missing:

   • Cells where the target locale value is absent, empty, or exactly equal to the base locale value (indicating an untranslated copy-paste). A base value with nothing to translate, such as {name}, %lld or a lone punctuation mark, is not counted, because its copy is already correct.
   • Plural keys where the target locale is missing any quantity the base locale defines. Each is translated with the CLDR-required categories the target is still missing, so an empty Ukrainian key gets one, few, many and other from an English one/other source. Quantities already filled in the target are left alone.
   • For an iOS .stringsdict device key, each device the base language has and the target lacks.

   Some keys are never counted, however empty they look:

   • keys marked not for translation;
   • strings Xcode marks Stale, which your code no longer uses;
   • strings an Android override folder such as values-fr-rCA/ inherits from its parent folder;
   • plural, width or device forms a language holds on its own while the base holds one string (in a String Catalog, a .stringsdict under a .strings base, or i18next under a base that shows {{count}}). StringLane does not write over those forms yet: edit them in Xcode or in the JSON file.

Phases#

• Checking, verifying your API key is available.
• Empty, if nothing's missing, the dialog shows "All locales up to date" + Dismiss.
• No key, if no API key is configured for the provider, routes you to Settings → App → AI Providers.
• Confirm: total count + the first five locales involved (or the first five plus "…and N more"). Click Translate to start.
• Translating: progress bar with running count ("N / M across K locales") + the locale currently being processed. Cancel aborts the requests in flight and stops the run.
• Done: summary: Translated N of M translations. K errors. (singular when the count is one), plus the last error message if any chunk failed. The unit is translations, not keys: a plural key counts once for each quantity the target locale was missing.

What happens under the hood#

• Sends as many requests at once as Settings → App → AI Providers → Concurrent requests allows (1 to 8, default 2). That number is the total for the whole run: StringLane spreads it across locales first, so a short locale does not wait behind a long one. See Set up AI translation.
• Each successful translation is applied via the normal auto-save path: writes hit your source files with the same format-preserving behaviour as manual edits.
• Cancelling keeps every result from requests that already finished; the requests in flight are aborted and their keys stay untranslated. You can always re-run the command to pick up the remaining gaps.
• Failed chunks surface their error messages in the summary so you can retry.

Related#

• Set up AI translation: prerequisite (BYOK provider + API key).
• Translate individual keys: the per-cell ✨ flow, still useful for one-off edits.
• Bulk translate a locale: focused single-locale bulk flow via the toolbar Translate… menu.