Loco Translate is on more than a million WordPress sites, and it is very good at what it does. It is just not the same job. This page is the honest version of what moving to TranslateRocket — a free multilingual WordPress plugin — actually involves: what comes across, what does not, and how long it takes.
The short version: your existing translations are imported in one click, nothing of yours is modified or deleted, and the import works even if the other plugin is already deactivated or deleted.
What this plugin does — and where it stops
Loco Translate edits .po and .mo files: the language files of your theme and your plugins. It is the right tool for changing “Add to cart” into “Aggiungi al carrello”. What it does not do is make your site multilingual: it cannot give you a Spanish version of your About page, a language switcher, or /es/ URLs. Interface strings are one language at a time — the site’s language.
Where your translations actually live
Everything you typed in Loco lives in wp-content/languages/loco/, as .po files (the editable ones) and .mo files (the compiled ones). Those hours of work are yours and they sit right there on your server.
What comes across
- Every string you translated by hand, for every language you worked in.
- Both plugin and theme catalogues.
- Nothing you did not write: the language packs WordPress downloads by itself are skipped on purpose. Those are thousands of strings nobody on your site chose, and importing them would bury the ones that matter.
- Entries still marked “fuzzy” are skipped too — nobody has checked them yet, and a translation nobody checked is not a translation.
One technical detail, because it matters and nobody mentions it: a .mo file does not carry the “fuzzy” flag — that lives only in the .po. Loco always writes both, and we read the .po when the two are side by side, so unreviewed entries stay out. If you only kept the .mo, they would come in.
How to migrate, step by step
- Back up your site. Nothing here modifies your content, but a migration without a backup is a bad habit whatever the tool.
- Install TranslateRocket from wordpress.org. It is free and there is no account to create.
- Pick your languages in TranslateRocket → Languages: the language your site is written in, and the ones you already have translations for.
- Open TranslateRocket → Import. The screen looks at your site and tells you what it found, with a count. If it says nothing was detected, nothing is guessed at.
- Press the import button for this plugin and let it run. Your original content is untouched.
- Fill the gaps for free. Whatever the old plugin never covered — menus, theme strings, WooCommerce — can be translated with the translator built into Chrome and Edge: no API key, no account, nothing sent anywhere. We timed it: 464 strings in 42 seconds.
- Check it, then remove the old plugin when you are satisfied — not before.
What life looks like afterwards
Keep Loco Translate installed if you like — the two do not fight. Loco keeps being your interface-string editor; TranslateRocket adds the languages, the URLs, the switcher and the page content.
You also get the things a translation plugin is judged on once the novelty wears off: /es/-style URLs with correct hreflang, translated slugs, a language switcher as a shortcode, block or widget, per-page visibility rules, and a translation memory so the same sentence is never translated twice.
Questions people ask before switching
Do I have to uninstall Loco Translate first?
No. The two plugins do different jobs and can live together. The import reads the files on disk, so it also works if you have already removed Loco.
Will it import the language packs WordPress downloaded automatically?
No, and that is deliberate. Only the files in wp-content/languages/loco/ are read — the work you actually did. Official language packs are already applied by WordPress and would add thousands of strings you never chose.
What happens to entries marked fuzzy?
They are skipped. Fuzzy means the translation was guessed by a tool and never confirmed by a person. You can still translate those strings afterwards, by hand or automatically.
Is this really free?
Yes. TranslateRocket has no paid version, no per-language fee and no word limit. If you use the translator built into Chrome and Edge you never pay anyone anything.
Coming from something else? WPML · Polylang · TranslatePress · Weglot · Loco Translate · Bogo · WPGlobus · WP Multilang · Multilanguage · qTranslate
Leaving a paid plugin? Read the honest comparisons: WPML alternative · TranslatePress alternative · Weglot alternative · GTranslate alternative
Want a hand with your site? I can do it for you
I am Federico, the developer of TranslateRocket — and building and translating WordPress sites is what I do for a living. That is how this plugin stays free: it is not crippled to sell you an upgrade, it is the tool I use every day on the sites I am paid to build.
A new multilingual site from scratch, a design put right, an existing site taken from one language to ten, custom development, reviewed translations, or a migration off a plugin that charges you every month: tell me what you need and I will tell you honestly whether I am the right person for it. You get the person who wrote the engine, not a support queue.
Need an API key?
Step-by-step guides for OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, DeepL and Google Translate: what each one costs, which ones are free, and how to set a spending limit. API key guides →
