SyncBack Translations
Thank you for your interest in translating SyncBack! Translations help tens of thousands of people use SyncBackPro, SyncBackSE, and SyncBackFree in their own language. This page provides the PO files you need to get started or update an existing translation.
Download Translation Files
Each Zip file contains the PO file for that language, a ReadMe with detailed instructions, the extra.txt file (strings used in the installer and ReadMe), and the languages.po file (language names). Download the file for the language you are translating:
| Language | Code | Download |
|---|---|---|
| English (for new translations) | translate.zip | |
| Armenian | hy | armenian.zip |
| Brazilian Portuguese | pt_BR | brazilian.zip |
| Catalan | ca | catalan.zip |
| Chinese (Hong Kong) | zh_HK | chinese_hk.zip |
| Chinese (Simplified) | zh_CN | chinese_simp.zip |
| Chinese (Traditional) | zh_TW | chinese_tw.zip |
| Czech | cs | czech.zip |
| Danish | da | danish.zip |
| Dutch | nl | dutch.zip |
| Finnish | fi | finnish.zip |
| French | fr | french.zip |
| German | de | german.zip |
| Greek | el | greek.zip |
| Hungarian | hu | hungarian.zip |
| Italian | it | italian.zip |
| Japanese | ja | japanese.zip |
| Korean | ko | korean.zip |
| Norwegian | nb | norgwegian.zip |
| Polish | pl | polish.zip |
| Romanian | ro | romanian.zip |
| Russian | ru | russian.zip |
| Spanish | es | spanish.zip |
| Swedish | sv | swedish.zip |
| Turkish | tr | turkish.zip |
| Ukrainian | uk | ukrainian.zip |
Want to translate SyncBack into a language not listed above? Please contact us and we will provide you with the base PO file.
How to Translate
- Download and install POEdit, a free PO file editor.
- Download the Zip file for your language from the table above and extract it.
- Open the default.po file in POEdit.
- Go to Translation > Properties and verify the language is set correctly. You can also enter your name and email address.
- Translate the strings by typing your translation into the lower-left box. When you save, a default.mo file will be created automatically.
- Also translate the strings in extra.txt (used in the installer and ReadMe). Create a copy, keep the same structure and line order, and replace the English text with your translation.
- In languages.po, translate the names of the following languages (and of course the name of the language you have translated): Armenian, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian.
- Zip and email the default.po, languages.po, and extra.txt files to [email protected].
Important Notes
- Do not remove or change format specifiers like %d, %s, %0:s, %1:d, etc. These are replaced with values when SyncBack runs.
- Keep line feed characters (\n) in the same position when translating.
- Keep escaped quotes (\") in your translations.
- Ampersands (&) mark accelerator keys (e.g. &Stop means "S" is the shortcut). Try to keep the same letter where possible.
- Do not translate product names: SyncBack, SyncBackFree, SyncBackSE, SyncBackPro, SyncBack Touch, and 2BrightSparks.
- Do not translate cloud service or protocol names, e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Amazon S3, FTP, SFTP, SSL, AES, etc.
- Do not translate filenames, paths, or filename extensions.
- If a string does not need translating, leave it blank so the default English string is used.
- All .po files must be saved with UTF-8 encoding. POEdit does this by default.
- Be consistent with terminology throughout: key terms like "profile", "source", "destination", "backup", "synchronize", "restore", and "log" should be translated the same way everywhere.
Partial Translations
Partial translations are welcome. If you cannot translate all the strings, please submit what you have completed. Any untranslated strings will automatically fall back to English when SyncBack is run.
Updating an Existing Translation
When a new version of SyncBack is released, the default.po file may contain new or changed strings. To update your existing translation:
- Open your previously translated .po file in POEdit.
- Use Translation > Update from POT file and select the new default.po file.
- POEdit will merge the new strings into your translation, marking changed strings as "fuzzy" for your review.
- Translate the new strings, review any fuzzy entries, then save and submit the updated file.
Testing Your Translation
To test your translation, create the following directory structure inside your SyncBack installation directory (or in a separate test directory containing a copy of the executable):
locale\XX\LC_MESSAGES\
Replace XX with your language code from the table above (e.g. FR for French). Copy both default.mo and languages.mo into that directory, then run SyncBack. You can check which language code SyncBack is using by going to the About screen.
