Product identification issues with Shopify i18n (different handles per language break product references)

Email Marketing
1

I’m running into what feels like a fundamental inconsistency between Shopify’s i18n system with Translate app and how product identification works across storefront and email contexts.

When enabling multiple languages, Shopify forces a different handle per language (e.g., /products/red-shoes → /products/chaussures-rouges).
That makes sense for SEO and UX—but the problem is that the handle is also the identifier used everywhere in Liquid (all_products[handle], URLs, etc.).
This means that the same product effectively becomes a different product in each language from a template or automation point of view.

Here’s what that breaks:

  1. Email templates and automations:

    • In notifications, we get product and variant IDs (gid://shopify/Product/...), which are stable across languages.

    • But Liquid has no way to access a product by ID (product_by_id doesn’t exist).

    • The only option is all_products[handle], which requires a handle—and that handle changes with language.

  2. Cross-language consistency:

    • If a customer checks out on the French version of the site, I have no way in the email template to link them to the Spanish (or even the original) version of the product, because Liquid can’t resolve another locale’s handle.

    • There’s no built-in mapping from product ID → localized handles.

As a result:

  • It’s impossible to safely identify or link products across locales within Shopify’s own templating environment.

  • The stable identifiers (product/variant IDs) can’t be used directly.

  • The localized identifiers (handles) break when switching languages.

Expected behavior (or feature request):

  • Liquid in email templates should allow fetching products by ID (product_by_id or similar), or

  • Shopify should provide a simple way to access a product’s handles across locales (e.g., product.handles['es']).

Example use case:
I want to include product info or links in an email template using only the product ID and variant ID I have from an order or external system, without relying on a localized handle that changes per market/language.

Right now, this is not possible without custom metafields or an external resolver.

Has anyone found a clean workaround for this, or can Shopify clarify if this design is intentional?