Manage Translation Memories

When a team translates the same product across many projects, the same phrases keep getting re-translated. A login screen string in one project, a button label in another, an error message in a third — all written by different people, each making slightly different choices. The result is inconsistent wording across products and wasted translator time.

Translation memory management lets your organization curate one or more shared memories, fill them with approved translations, and reuse them across every project that should follow the same wording. The Translation Memory feature in the editor then surfaces matches from any memory connected to the current project.

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Translation memory management is available on advanced plans. The feature must be enabled for your organization for the management UI to appear.

Translation memory types

Tolgee distinguishes two kinds of memories.

A shared memory lives at the organization level and stores its own entries. You add entries by importing a TMX file, by manual entry, or automatically as translators save translations in any assigned project. Multiple projects can read from and write to the same shared memory, so a translation reviewed once becomes available everywhere.

A project-only memory is created automatically when the Translation Memory feature is enabled on an organization, one per project. Its content is virtual, computed on the fly from the project's own translations. You cannot import into a project-only memory or add entries manually, but you can configure whether it should suggest only reviewed translations.

In the memory list, each row shows a Shared or Project only chip so you can tell them apart at a glance.

Open the translation memories list

The list of memories lives in organization settings.

1. Open Organization settings
2. Select Translation memories in the side menu

Anyone in the organization can see the list. Only an organization maintainer or owner can create, edit, or delete a memory, and only a maintainer can manage entries inside one. If you cannot see the + Translation memory button, ask an organization owner to grant you the maintainer role.

Create a shared translation memory

Create a shared memory when you want a single source of approved translations that several projects should reuse.

1. On the translation memories list, click + Translation memory
2. Enter a Name that describes its scope (for example, Marketing copy or iOS app)
3. Pick a Base language — every project assigned to this memory must use the same base language
4. Set a Default penalty (0–100%) — the penalty is subtracted from match scores when suggestions from this memory appear in the editor
5. Optionally toggle Only accept reviewed translations to gate writes (see Configure write rules below)
6. Optionally add the projects this memory should cover, with read or write access and a per-project penalty
7. Click Create

The base language is locked once any project is assigned. If you need to change it later, disconnect every project first.

Add entries manually

Open the memory by clicking its row in the list. The entries view shows every stored translation, grouped by source text, with one column per language.

1. Click + Entry
2. Type the source text in the base language column
3. Type translations in any of the other language columns
4. Click Save

To edit an entry, click any cell in its row. To delete entries, select them with the row checkboxes and use the Delete action in the batch toolbar that appears at the top.

The entries view supports two layouts. Use the toolbar buttons to switch between One row per entry (a compact grid that shows every language in a single row) and Stack languages vertically (one row per language, useful when entries have many translations). Filter by language with the language picker, and use the search field to find entries by source or target text.

Import a TMX file

Importing TMX is the fastest way to seed a memory with translations you already have, for example after migrating from another translation system or after exporting from a CAT tool.

1. Open the memory you want to import into
2. Click the Import TMX button (cloud-upload icon) in the toolbar
3. Drop a .tmx file into the upload area, or click to browse
4. If the memory already has entries, choose how to handle conflicts:
   • Keep existing entries — new entries are added, previously imported entries are kept unchanged
   • Override existing entries — new entries are added, previously imported entries are replaced with the new translations
5. Click Import

Only TMX 1.4b files are supported. Once the import finishes, a summary shows how many entries were created, updated, or skipped.

You cannot import into a project-only memory because its content is computed from the project translations.

Export a TMX file

Export a memory to TMX when you need to back it up, share it with an external translator, or move it to another organization.

1. Open the memory
2. Click the Export TMX button (download icon) in the toolbar

The browser downloads a TMX 1.4b file containing every entry in the memory.

Assign a memory to projects

Assigning a memory to a project lets translators see suggestions from that memory in the editor and, if write access is enabled, lets the project contribute new translations back to the memory.

You can manage assignments in two places.

From the memory — open the memory's Settings (three-dot menu on the list, or click Manage all TMs from the project's translation memory section). The settings dialog has a Used in projects section where you can add or remove projects, toggle each project's Read and Write access, and set a per-project Penalty that overrides the memory's default.

From the project — open Project settings → Translation memory. This view lists every memory assigned to the project in priority order. Drag a row by its handle to change priority — memories higher in the list are preferred when scoring is tied.

Only projects whose base language matches the memory's base language can be assigned. Projects with different base languages are hidden from the project picker so the assignment cannot fail at submit.

Configure write rules

The Only accept reviewed translations switch controls when a translation flows from a project into a shared memory.

When the switch is off (default), every saved translation is written to the memory, including translations still in progress. This builds the memory faster but mixes draft and final wording.

When the switch is on, only translations marked Reviewed are written. If a previously reviewed translation is later un-reviewed, the corresponding entry is removed from the memory. TMX import and direct edits in the entries view bypass this filter — they always succeed.

For shared memories, this setting is fixed at creation time. To change behaviour, create a new shared memory. Project-only memories carry the same switch (under the label Only include reviewed translations) and can be toggled at any time.

Delete a translation memory

Deleting a shared memory permanently removes it and every entry it contains. The action cannot be undone, so you must confirm by typing the memory's name in upper case.

1. Open the three-dot menu on the memory's row
2. Select Delete
3. Type the memory name in upper case to confirm

Project-only memories cannot be deleted manually — they are removed automatically if the Translation Memory feature is disabled for the organization.

Reference

Memory types

Type	Stored entries	TMX import	Manual entries	Multi-project
Shared	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Project only	No (virtual)	No	No	No (one project)

Per-project assignment options

Option	Effect
Read	Suggestions from this memory appear in the editor
Write	New translations saved in this project are written into the memory
Priority	Order in the project's memory list — higher priority wins ties
Penalty	Lowers the match score for suggestions from this memory in this project, overriding the memory's default penalty

Suggestion ordering

When the editor needs to pick a TM match, it considers every memory the project can read from. Each candidate match is scored by:

1. Similarity between the source text and the candidate's source text
2. Minus the applicable penalty (per-project override, or the memory's default)

Matches below 50% similarity are not shown. Ties are broken by the memory's priority in the project's translation memory list. See Translation Memory for how matches appear in the editor.

Permissions

Action	Required role
View the list of memories	Any organization member with project access
Create, edit, delete a memory	Organization owner or maintainer
Manage entries (add, edit, delete, import)	Organization owner or maintainer
Configure project's TM list, priority, per-project access	Project user with project.edit permission
Configure project-only memory's Only include reviewed translations	Project user with project.edit permission

TMX format

Tolgee imports and exports TMX 1.4b. Other TMX revisions are not supported. The TMX srclang is taken from the memory's base language; tuv elements outside the memory's languages are ignored on import.