About

The .xcloc file format is a package used in MacOS and iOS development to organise and manage localisation files. It is primarily created by Xcode to facilitate the localisation of application content into different languages.

The .xcloc package is designed to simplify the localisation process for developers using Xcode. By bundling all the necessary files, metadata and contextual information, it helps translators and developers manage translations across multiple languages.

The problem with .xcloc is that it doesn't really lend itself to continuous localisation. If you have multiple developers making frequent changes, your translation vendor would be overwhelmed with many .xcloc packages.

The suggested workflow is to integrate Crowdin into the development process so that it can pick up changes to .xcstrings or .strings files directly from the Git branches and store translated content back. This way, translation can start as soon as the new copy of the product appears (it can start even earlier, at the design stage, using the Figma plugin).

But .xcloc has one super valuable feature. The amount of context it can carry, especially screenshots that the XCode helps to produce.

This Crowdin app is built to take advantage of this feature. If you already have an .xcloc with screenshots, simply install this application, visit the Tools section of your product and click "Upload" to instantly import all the screenshots of your application and associate them with the translation strings imported from .xcstrings or .strings files.

Screenshot

Note: If you are a translator or an LSP and have received an .xcloc package for translation, you can simply drag and drop it as the "source" for translation. If the package contains screenshots, they will be imported as assets, but you should not translate them. We recommend extracting .xcstrings, .strings or .xlf files and uploading them manually.