FAQ: Too Many Translation Keys and how to resolved it

If you're encountering "Too many translation keys" when copying customizations to the new updated theme and are unable to edit or save translations through Transcy, it likely means you have exceeded the limit of translation entries allowed for your store's languages.

The "Too many translation keys" error in Shopify occurs when you reach the limit of translation keys set by the Shopify team for any secondary language you add to your store.

There is an official number given as a limit by the Shopify team, this occurs after you reach 3400 keys in your theme for locale file.

Shopify enforces a hard limit on the number of translation keys allowed per theme. When your theme exceeds this limit:

• Translation apps like Transcy become unable to save new translations
• Existing translations may stop displaying properly

Every theme comes with its own translatable resources. Some come with the theme by default and are stored in the theme locale files like en.default.json, fr.json, de.json, etc. Others are created when you add content through:

• Your theme Customizer
• Through a Third-party page builder app (Like "Ecomposer", for example)

Creating a lot of page templates in Shopify (or page builder apps), floods your theme with translation keys and you might get this error when you start translating the given pages.

Why is there such a limit?

The limit comes from Shopify itself and not from the translation app or from the page builder app that you use.

Shopify has stated that this limit is in place for "performance reasons", although they have not placed the same limit for the primary language. (only for the secondary languages)

You can kindly refer to these documents for more details: https://intercom.help/sherpas-design/en/articles/11315847-how-to-resolve-too-many-translation-keys-error

How to resolve the "Too many translation keys" error?

Here are some solutions you can forward to your theme developer to resolve these issues:

Reducing the number of translation keys in your theme:

• First, you need to identify the source of the excessive amount of translation keys - if you have created a lot of page/product templates in your theme Customizer and try to reduce the amount of resources in them.
• Simplify your theme by removing or consolidating text elements that require translation.
• Avoid duplicating similar text blocks across different sections of your theme.
• Use plain text where possible instead of complex HTML or Liquid code in text blocks, as these can generate more translation keys.

Extending the number of translation keys:

• Add new text elements or sections that require translation to provide more detailed localization.

In case you have a page builder app that supports the multi-language feature in Shopify, check the page templates.

Whether you have flooded your theme with too many translation keys through the theme Customizer or with a third-party page builder app, the solution is the same:

• Remove the unused resources first - instead of hiding an unused resource in the builder, delete it, so it does not count towards the keys limit
• Merge duplicated keys - If you have multiple translation keys that serve a similar purpose, consider merging them into a single key
• Merge duplicated templates - in most cases, merchants reach the translation keys limit because they create a separate product template for each product in their store, even though the whole product template is exactly the same. This results in duplicated content

Please consider removing duplicated product templates into a single one, that's used by multiple/all products.

We truly understand that this situation may cause some frustration, but it involves theme code and translation management beyond the Transcy capabilities. Please contact with the theme developer or Shopify Support to request theme optimization that reduces the number of unique translation keys. This is the only reliable way to resolve this issue.

Updated on: 11/11/2025