How to Translate User Meta Information With WPML

Updated: February 12, 2025

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WPML lets you translate user meta information. This includes user name, nickname, biography, and custom user fields you create.

Translate Default User Meta Information

To translate default user meta information, like name and biography:

Go to WPML → String Translation.
Expand the can’t find strings section and click Translate User properties. If you don’t see this section, search for a random string. The section will appear once the page loads.

Opening the Translate user properties settings

A window will open. Select the user roles you want to make translatable and click Apply.

Finally, set the All domains dropdown filter to Authors. This will display user meta information in the table. Proceed to translate strings regularly.

Translate Custom User Meta Information

To translate custom user meta information, you need to add a WPML filter to your theme’s functions.php file. We recommend using a child theme for this because otherwise, your changes will be overwritten the next time you update your theme.

In the following example, we make our custom user field “Position” translatable using the field’s slug:

add_filter( 'wpml_translatable_user_meta_fields', function( $fields ) {
   $fields[] = 'position';
   return $fields;
} );

Once set as translatable, you can translate your custom user meta information using String Translation. To display your translated user meta information on the frontend, you can use the following code:

get_the_author_meta( ‘slug-of-your-custom-user-field’, $user_id );