Translate the App

Automatic documentation translation

On devices running iOS 26 or later, the in-app documentation is automatically translated into your device language when you open Help & Documentation.

Here's how it works: The very first person to use a particular language + app version combination translates all pages on-device and automatically contributes their translations back to the community. Every user after them gets those translations instantly — no waiting for on-device translation.

  1. You open Help & Documentation in a non-English language.
  2. If community translations already exist for your language and app version, they're downloaded instantly.
  3. If not, Apple's Translation framework translates every page on-device (~10 seconds per page).
  4. Your translations are anonymously uploaded to the meshtastic/translations repository.
  5. The next user in your language gets instant translated docs from the community cache.

No sign-up, no manual work — it just happens in the background while you use the app. You can disable this by toggling off Participate in Distributed Translations in App Settings.

Tip — English users If your device language is English, no translation occurs and the bundled English documentation is displayed directly.

Contributing app translations

Contributing translations helps make Meshtastic accessible to a wider audience. Native speakers can review machine-translated strings for their language directly in Xcode — look for strings marked Needs Review and improve anything that sounds unnatural. If you have a Mac with Apple Silicon, you can also run a script that uses on-device Apple Intelligence to generate any missing translations for your language and automatically open a pull request.

Review machine translations

All on-device translations are uploaded to the meshtastic/translations repository. They're a great starting point, but machine translations aren't perfect! If you're a native speaker and spot something that could be improved:

  1. Browse to your language + app version at apple-apps/
  2. Edit the .md file directly on GitHub
  3. Submit a pull request

Your improvements will be served to every user of that language going forward — no coding required.

Generate new translations with a script

Requirements

Before you start, make sure you have:

Install local-localizer

git clone https://github.com/JoshuaSullivan/local-localizer.git ~/local-localizer
cd ~/local-localizer && swift build -c release
mkdir -p ~/bin && cp .build/release/local-localizer ~/bin/local-localizer

Make sure ~/bin is on your PATH (add export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH" to your shell profile if needed).

Add or complete a locale

Clone the repository, then run the translation script with your locale code:

git clone https://github.com/meshtastic/Meshtastic-Apple.git
cd Meshtastic-Apple
scripts/translate-locale.sh <locale>

For example:

scripts/translate-locale.sh fr          # French
scripts/translate-locale.sh de formal   # German, formal register
scripts/translate-locale.sh ja polite   # Japanese, polite register
scripts/translate-locale.sh zh-Hant-TW  # Traditional Chinese (Taiwan)

The script will:

  1. Count how many strings are missing or need updating for the locale
  2. Generate a glossary that keeps Meshtastic brand terms (LoRa, MQTT, BLE, TAK, etc.) untranslated
  3. Run local-localizer using on-device Apple Intelligence — no internet or API key needed
  4. Mark every new string as Needs Review so native speakers know to check them
  5. Commit the result and open a pull request automatically

The translation step runs entirely on your device and takes roughly 10–20 minutes for a complete locale.

Tone options

Tone When to use
professional Default — clear and neutral, suitable for most languages
formal Recommended for German (de), French (fr), Italian (it), Spanish (es) — selects the polite second-person form (Sie / vous / Lei / usted)
polite Recommended for Japanese (ja) and Korean (ko) — selects polite verb forms
informal Casual register
neutral Plain, no register preference

Reviewing translated strings

Once the PR is open, any native speaker can review the translations directly in Xcode:

  1. Open Meshtastic.xcworkspace
  2. Select Localizable.xcstrings in the project navigator
  3. Filter by your locale and set the state filter to Needs Review
  4. Read each string in context, edit if needed, and mark it Reviewed
  5. Push your changes to the PR branch

Thank you for helping expand the reach of Meshtastic!