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/Web Extensions

i18n

Functions to internationalize your extension. You can use these APIs to get localized strings from locale files packaged with your extension, find out the browser's current language, and find out the value of its Accept-Language header.

Types

i18n.LanguageCode
A language tag such as "en-US" or "fr".

Functions

i18n.getAcceptLanguages()
Gets the accept-languages of the browser. This is different from the locale used by the browser. To get the locale, use i18n.getUILanguage.
i18n.getMessage()
Gets the localized string for the specified message.
i18n.getUILanguage()
Gets the UI language of the browser. This is different from i18n.getAcceptLanguages which returns the preferred user languages.
i18n.detectLanguage()
Detects the language of the provided text using the Compact Language Detector.

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile
Chrome Edge Firefox Internet Explorer Opera Safari WebView Android Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet
LanguageCode
47
14
45
?
34
No
?
?
48
?
?
?
detectLanguage
47
79
47
?
34
No
?
?
48
?
?
?
getAcceptLanguages
47
14
47
?
34
14
?
?
48
?
?
?
getMessage
17
14
["Throws an exception instead returning an empty string if the message does not exist.", "Expects substitutions to be strings, while other browsers allow any value which is then converted to a string."]
45
Firefox 47 and earlier returns "??" instead of "" if the message is not found in _locales, bug 1258199 changed this act to match Chrome, landed on Firefox 48.
?
15
14
?
?
48
?
?
?
getUILanguage
35
14
47
Firefox 55 and earlier returns a language tag that's separated with the underscore character instead of hyphen, see bug 1374552.
?
Yes
14
?
?
48
?
?
?

Example extensions

Note: This API is based on Chromium's chrome.i18n API. This documentation is derived from i18n.json in the Chromium code.

Microsoft Edge compatibility data is supplied by Microsoft Corporation and is included here under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

See also

© 2005–2021 MDN contributors.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/API/i18n