Why did my theme update erase most translations?

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Topic summary

A theme update from Impulse 7.1 to 7.2 caused most translations to disappear, though navigation, pages, and product content remained intact. The issue stems from Shopify’s architecture: theme translations (ONLINE_STORE_THEME) are tied to specific theme IDs and don’t automatically transfer when themes are updated or published via Git.

Workaround Solution:
A staff member provided a detailed method using Google Sheets:

  • Export translation CSVs from both old and new themes (one language at a time)
  • Filter to only ONLINE_STORE_THEME rows
  • Use a VLOOKUP formula to match and copy translations based on source content
  • Import the updated CSV into the new theme

Key Limitations:

  • Must be repeated for each language separately
  • Only works for theme updates with identical section IDs
  • Doesn’t capture translations from third-party apps like Ecomposer
  • Product, collection, and other resource translations persist automatically via Shopify’s Translations API

Alternative Method:
Directly replace old theme IDs with new theme IDs in exported CSVs before re-importing.

Outstanding Issues:

  • Cannot export default language translations as CSV
  • Thousands of product images and ALT texts may require manual re-uploading
  • Git-based workflows trigger theme ID changes, causing translation loss with no current workaround

Users express frustration that Shopify lacks native solutions for this common scenario.

Summarized with AI on October 25. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
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I’ve now come to the point where I’m going to try and upgrade our theme.

Appart from language translatations, each product image is also translated (both from a ALT-perspective but also from a file perspective). Do I have to reuppload and remap thousands of images?

Being an IT-architect of enterprise systems for more than 20 years it is clear to me that Shopify is not built for international shops. Everything is fixes and additions to a single market platform.

//Christer