Customizing the language of your email templates in Shopify can be crucial to cater to different regions and target audiences. It’s important to note that even if you’ve configured your theme to use a different language, the default language for both the email templates and the backend of your store remains English.

This language separation occurs because email templates are not directly tied to your theme’s coding. Consequently, selecting a regional language in your theme’s settings won’t automatically translate your email templates. To address this, follow these steps:

  1. Access Shopify Settings: Start by navigating to your Shopify admin panel.
  2. Notifications Configuration: Click on “Notifications” within the settings.
  3. Individual Template Translation: Here, you’ll need to work on each email template separately. Translate the content of each template to your desired language. This manual process is currently the only way to translate email templates in Shopify since there isn’t an automatic translation option available.

email templates

Now, let’s delve into how changes in theme language settings affect your email templates:

  • Unedited Themes: If you haven’t made any customizations to your theme, changing the language of your theme will automatically update the language of the email templates to match the theme language.
  • Modified Email Template Body: When you’ve made changes only to the email template’s body text, altering the language of your theme will update the title of the email template to the new language, but the body text will remain in the previously set language.
  • Modified Email Template Title: If you’ve modified the title of an email template, changing the language of your theme won’t affect the language of that specific email template’s content; it will remain in the language you previously set.

It’s important to note that while there have been discussions in Shopify community forums about the need for a multilingual admin interface, as of now, the Shopify admin interface is available exclusively in English, and no updates have been announced to address this issue.

In summary, ensuring that your email templates are in the right language for your audience requires manual adjustments in Shopify’s settings. This process is separate from your theme’s language settings and can be essential for effective communication with customers in various regions.