Admin now supports 3 new languages
Source: Shopify Product Changelog
Shopify Admin Adds Support for Three Right-to-Left Languages
What Changed
Shopify has expanded language support in Admin to include three right-to-left (RTL) languages: Arabic, Urdu, and Hebrew. The update applies across multiple surfaces, including the Shopify Admin interface, checkout, customer accounts, and the Horizon family of themes.
Display language is determined automatically based on the user’s device settings when available. This applies to the Admin interface and system-level UI elements. Merchant-owned content, such as product pages, remains governed by the languages merchants have explicitly enabled for their storefronts. Merchants can manage these translations through the Translate & Adapt app, which supports adding and editing localized content for product detail pages (PDPs) and other storefront elements.
Why This Matters for App Developers
RTL language support affects more than text direction. Layout mirroring, icon placement, form alignment, and navigation flow all shift when rendering RTL content. Developers building Shopify apps with custom Admin UI extensions, embedded app frameworks, or Polaris-based interfaces should verify that their components render correctly in RTL contexts.
Apps that inject custom UI into checkout, customer accounts, or theme sections should also test against Horizon-based themes to confirm compatibility with RTL layouts. This includes checking CSS logical properties, flexbox and grid direction, and any hardcoded left/right positioning in custom styles.
Practical Implications
Developers should audit app interfaces for hardcoded directional CSS (left/right margins, padding, text-align) and replace them with direction-agnostic properties where possible. Apps relying on Polaris components likely inherit RTL support automatically, but custom-built UI elements outside Polaris require manual verification.
Testing should include simulating device locale settings for Arabic, Urdu, and Hebrew to confirm Admin-facing app extensions display correctly. Apps that generate or manage translated content should also confirm compatibility with the Translate & Adapt app’s data structure for PDP localization.