How to help us translate Session into new languages quickly and easily

There are people all around the world who can benefit from access to Session — and that means we need to make Session available in as many languages as possible. We’ve had a number of requests from community members wanting to help out by translating Session into currently unsupported (or only partially supported) languages. If you speak multiple languages and you want to help us make Session available in another language you speak, this guide will show you how to translate Session’s iOS and Android apps quickly and easily.

Translating Session for iOS:

Translating Session for iOS into a new language is easy! Here’s how:

• Head to https://crowdin.com/project/session-ios

• Create a CrowdIn account (or log in to an existing account)

• Click on the language you’d like to translate Session into (note: the % beneath each flag shows how much of the app is already translated into that language — if a language shows 100%, that translation is already complete!)

• On the next screen, click localizable.strings

• You’ll see a screen with a list of items on the left — these are the “strings” (chunks of text) that need to be translated

• Click the first string in the list, read the English text that appears under “Source String” in the middle of the screen, then type in the translation and click Save

• Repeat this process for the rest of the strings 

Voila! Just like that, you’ve helped us translate Session into a new language.

Anonymous translation for iOS

We know many Session users may not want to link their identity to anything related to Session — including CrowdIn. If you want to help us translate Session but you don’t want to create a CrowdIn account, you can still help — it’s just a little more involved. You’ll need a web browser, a plaintext editor (TextEdit on macOS or Notepad on Windows will do), and a little bit of time and patience.

Step 1: Retrieving English strings

• Go to Session’s iOS GitHub page

• In the list of folders and files, click Session

• Click Meta 

• Click Translations

• Click en.lproj

• Click localizable.strings

• Scroll down to Line #2557 (using the line numbers on the left-hand side of the text). This line should contain the text // MARK: - Session (Note: if this line does not contain that text, use Ctrl+F, Cmd+F, or your browser’s Find on Page function to find the line which contains that text)

• Select and copy all text from that line down to the end of the file

• Open a plaintext editor (TextEdit on macOS, Notepad on Windows, or your preferred plaintext editor) and create a new file

• Paste the text you copied earlier into this blank file

Step 2: Translate!

This file will now have a large number of lines of code. Each line contains 2 sets of information, both in quotation marks, like this:

"continue_2" = "Continue";

For each line of code, translate the word or sentence to the right of the equals sign into the language you are translating into. Do not edit the text to the left of the equals sign. 

Once you are finished translating, save the file with a filename that specifies which language you have translated the app into, and email the file to us at [email protected] along with information about the language you have translated the app into. Be sure to specify in your email that you have translated the iOS app (for information on translating the Android app, see below). Our developers will then take your translation and apply it to the Session iOS app. Thank you for helping make Session more accessible for everyone!

Translating Session for Android:

Translating Session for Android into a new language is easy! Here’s how:

• Head to https://crowdin.com/project/session-android

• Create a CrowdIn account (or log in to an existing account)

• Click on the language you’d like to translate Session into (note: the % beneath each flag shows how much of the app is already translated into that language — if a language shows 100%, that translation is already complete!)

• On the next screen, click strings.xml

• You’ll see a screen with a list of items on the left — these are the “strings” (chunks of text) that need to be translated

• Click the first string in the list, read the English text that appears under “Source String” in the middle of the screen, then type in the translation and click Save

• Repeat this process for the rest of the strings 

Voila! Just like that, you’ve helped us translate Session into a new language.

Anonymous translation

Just like with iOS, we know many Session Android users may not want to link their identity to anything related to Session — including CrowdIn. If you want to help us translate Session for Android but you don’t want to create a CrowdIn account, you can still help — it’s just a little more involved. You’ll need a web browser, a plaintext editor (TextEdit on macOS or Notepad on Windows will do), and a little bit of time and patience.

Step 1: Retrieving English strings

• Go to Session’s Android GitHub page

• In the list of files and folders, click res

• Click values (you will need to scroll down to find this folder; make sure you click the folder named values and not any of the folders named values-xx or with other suffixes)

• Click strings.xml

• Scroll down to Line #1657 (using the line numbers on the left-hand side of the text). This line should contain the text  <!-- Session --> (Note: if this line does not contain that text, use Ctrl+F, Cmd+F, or your browser’s Find on Page function to find the line which contains that text)

• Select and copy all text from that line down to the end of the file

• Open a plaintext editor (TextEdit on macOS, Notepad on Windows, or your preferred plaintext editor) and create a new file

• Paste the text you copied earlier into this blank fil

Step 2: Translate!

This file will now have a large number of lines of code. Each line will contain <string name=”xxx”> and </string> tags. To translate Session Android, translate the text between these tags. For example:

<string name="continue_2">Continue</string>

In this line, translate the word Continue into the language you are translating into. Do not translate any other text. Do not translate the text inside either pair of angled brackets <>.

Translate the word or sentence between each pair of <string></string> tags, on each line. 

Once you are finished translating, save the file with a filename that specifies which language you have translated the app into, and email the file to us at [email protected] along with information about the language you have translated the app into. Be sure to specify in your email that you have translated the Android app (for information on translating the iOS app, see above). Our developers will then take your translation and apply it to the Session Android app. Thank you for helping make Session more accessible for everyone!