53

I'm a developer, and my primary language is French, so I use Mac OS X in French. However, I need on a regular basis to open an application in English to do support.

Right now I'm going to the International System Preferences and I put English above in the languages list, then I open the app I need to run in English. When I'm done, I switch it back to French.

This is an annoying process. Is there something else I can use, like a command-line program, to launch an application in a specific language?

Improve this question

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
17

There is a freeware, Language Switcher, to launch a single application with a different languages.

it's really simple and work amazingly.

Improve this answer
2
  • 10
    Under the hood, it just launches the program with a -AppleLanguages (French) switch, which is what I really needed. Thank you! Commented Aug 18, 2010 at 21:21
  • This app seems to be unavailable now. Alternative: App Language Chooser from MAS apps.apple.com/de/app/app-language-chooser/id451732904 Commented Nov 23, 2019 at 18:02
76

You can change the language inside the preferences file of the application :

defaults write com.apple.TextEdit AppleLanguages '("en-US")'

Or just run once one application with another language :

/Applications/iCal.app/Contents/MacOS/iCal -AppleLanguages '(de)'

To determine the bundle identifier, run

mdls -name kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier /Applications/Mail.app

or directly in one command:

defaults write $(mdls -name kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier -raw /Applications/Mail.app) AppleLanguages '("en-UK")'

(via SuperUser)

Improve this answer
4
  • Interesting. The direct "program-call"-approach works for Excel, but not for Numbers. With Numbers you have to change language in the preference file. (The first example above). Commented Oct 15, 2016 at 21:45
  • This preference does not work anymore on 10.11. Is there any alternatives? Commented Oct 19, 2016 at 12:00
  • 1
    It just worked for me on 10.11, no problem here. Commented May 3, 2017 at 21:50
  • Worked for me on High Sierra (10.13) as well. Commented Jan 19, 2018 at 9:10
1

Go to the app, Press Command + I and if there are other languages they will show up in the info page. Just untick all except the language you want

Improve this answer
2
  • 5
    This no longer work in Snow Leopard. Commented Aug 18, 2010 at 21:59
  • In Safari on Mojave, it is email shortcut. Commented Sep 23, 2019 at 10:42
1

For Google Chrome do this:

defaults write com.google.Chrome AppleLanguages '("en-US")'
Improve this answer
1
  • For Compressor is com.apple.Compressor Commented May 30, 2020 at 15:55
0

I also found this to work:

 bash-3.2$ LANG=de.UTF-8 bash-3.2$ /Applications/MuseScore\ 3.app/Contents/MacOS/mscore

German menu

Improve this answer
-2

In the Finder, get info on the application. There are languages here, and you can choose. Alas, this seems to have disappeared in Snow Leopard.

Improve this answer
1
  • 6
    How does this differ from @Avi's answer made 3 years ago? Commented Aug 25, 2013 at 11:07

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.