Apple .stringsdict localization with AI

What it is

Stringsdict is the property-list format iOS uses for pluralization and variable-width strings, alongside .strings in each lproj folder.

Example

<plist version="1.0"><dict>  <key>photos_count</key>  <dict>    <key>NSStringLocalizedFormatKey</key>    <string>%#@photos@</string>    <key>photos</key>    <dict>      <key>NSStringFormatSpecTypeKey</key>      <string>NSStringPluralRuleType</string>      <key>NSStringFormatValueTypeKey</key>      <string>d</string>      <key>one</key>      <string>%d photo</string>      <key>other</key>      <string>%d photos</string>    </dict>  </dict></dict></plist>

How Glossa handles it

Plurals

Each NSStringPluralRuleType dictionary becomes one plural entry, translated for every CLDR category the target language uses (Russian needs one, few, many and other).

Comments and context

Plists carry no per-key comments; add context in Glossa.

Placeholders

%d, %@ and the %#@variable@ references are protected so the plist stays valid.

Translate it from the command line

Push the source-language file; strings are deduplicated against the rest of your workspace and queued for translation. Pull writes App/es.lproj/Localizable.stringsdict back in the same format.

npx @meterapp/glossa loginnpx @meterapp/glossa push App/en.lproj/Localizable.stringsdict --project appnpx @meterapp/glossa pull --project app --locale es,de,ja

Or ask an agent over MCP: “Push App/en.lproj/Localizable.stringsdict to Glossa and pull Spanish.” It calls push_file and pull_file. See the CLI and MCP guides.

Other formats

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