Why not offer an auto translation of filenames process?

This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.

Problem:
You are experiencing inefficiencies in uploading images with localized filenames for SEO purposes using WPML Media Translation. You've noticed there is no automatic process for translating filenames, which makes the process time-consuming.
Solution:
We have considered the possibility of implementing automatic filename translation. However, after internal discussions, we decided not to pursue this feature at the moment. The main reasons are the lack of sufficient demand from our users and the potential increase in database usage due to file duplication. WPML is designed to focus on translating user-generated content like alt texts and captions while using the same media file across different translations.

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Tagged: Feature request

This topic contains 3 replies, has 0 voices.

Last updated by Lucas Vidal de Andrade 1 month, 2 weeks ago.

Assisted by: Lucas Vidal de Andrade.

Author	Posts
September 18, 2025 at 2:37 pm #17413978
T4ng	Background of the issue: This is a general request about WPML Media Translation WPML Media 3.0 is out, and offers automation for alt and title tags translation. I have quite some SEO knowledge and can affirm: - Alt are important for SEO purposes - Titles are absolutely useless for SEO issues. I even purposely don't translate them, and stick to english, so that whatever the language (that I might understand or not, I know what an image is aboun when crawling any language library. I hide meta titles from the frontend and use them form librart organization purposes - However, one thing I really miss is being able to speed up the process of uploading replacemnet images through media translation. For 80% of my image I just take the orginal one, edit its name, and upload it. Ex : [EN] red-apple.webp >> [FR] pomme-rouge.webp. It's the same image a localized filename (and of course localized alt later on), and I keep doing this because it's important for SEO. Still it's extremely time consuming. Symptoms: There is no auto translation process for filenames, making the process of translating images inefficient. Questions: Why not offer an auto translation of filenames process? How can I make the process of uploading the same image with a different name more efficient?
September 29, 2025 at 6:06 am #17439457
Lucas Vidal de Andrade WPML Supporter since 11/2023 Languages: English (English ) Timezone: Europe/Vienna (GMT+01:00)	Hello there, Your feature request is under analysis. It usually takes several days until we have feedback of the analysis, I'll keep you updated.
October 2, 2025 at 7:30 am #17450652
T4ng	Hi, Thanks for the update.
October 13, 2025 at 12:23 pm #17479552
Lucas Vidal de Andrade WPML Supporter since 11/2023 Languages: English (English ) Timezone: Europe/Vienna (GMT+01:00)	Hi, Thank you again for your feedback and thoughtful suggestion. After analyzing this internally, we have gotten to a conclusion. At this time, we're not planning to implement automatic filename translation. This is primarily because there hasn't been enough demand for it from our users, and introducing such a feature would require duplicating files, which increases database usage and goes against how WPML is currently designed to work. WPML focuses on translating user-generated input, such as alt text and captions, while maintaining the same media file across translations. We really appreciate your input, and should there be more interest in the future, we’ll certainly revisit the idea. Best regards, Lucas