Shopify Admin Expands to Arabic, Urdu, and Hebrew—What Merchants and Developers Need to Know

Shopify just rolled out a major accessibility win: the Admin interface now speaks Arabic, Urdu, and Hebrew. These three right‑to‑left (RTL) languages are fully supported across the Admin dashboard, checkout, customer accounts, and the Horizon family of themes. For merchants eyeing new markets in the Middle East and South Asia, and for developers building multilingual experiences, this update removes a long‑standing friction point. In this post we’ll break down exactly what changed, who it matters to, and the concrete actions you should take right now.

Why RTL Support Matters

RTL languages aren’t just a visual flip; they affect layout, typography, navigation flow, and even data validation. Before this release, merchants could sell to Arabic‑speaking customers, but the Admin experience remained left‑to‑right, creating a disjointed workflow for store owners and staff who prefer their native script. By aligning the backend with the storefront, Shopify reduces cognitive load, improves accuracy when managing orders, and signals a deeper commitment to global commerce.

What Changed: New RTL Languages in Admin

The update adds native support for Arabic, Urdu, and Hebrew across the entire Admin UI. Display language is now automatically selected based on the user’s device or browser locale settings, mirroring how the storefront chooses language. All standard Admin components—order lists, product editors, analytics dashboards, and theme customizer—render in RTL when the appropriate language is detected. Importantly, product‑owned content (descriptions, metafields, etc.) continues to display in whatever languages the merchant has enabled, preserving existing translations.

Impact on Merchants

Localized workflow – Store owners and staff who operate primarily in Arabic, Urdu, or Hebrew now see menus, forms, and notifications in their native script, cutting down on mis‑clicks.

Consistent checkout experience – When you enable an RTL language for your storefront, the checkout page already inherits the correct directionality, removing the need for custom CSS hacks.

No extra development required – The change is built into the platform; you only need to turn the language on in Admin settings.

Better team collaboration – International teams can work in a shared language environment, improving communication and reducing translation errors.

Impact on Developers

Developers get a cleaner canvas for RTL projects. The theme editor now respects the Admin RTL flag, so custom sections, Liquid snippets, and JavaScript UI components automatically inherit the correct dir="rtl" attribute. API responses remain unchanged, but you’ll notice that the Accept-Language header sent by the Admin UI will include the newly supported locales (e.g., ar, ur, he). This lets you tailor server‑side rendering or webhook payloads if you need locale‑specific logic.

Getting Started: Enabling Arabic, Urdu, and Hebrew

Navigate to Settings → Admin language in your Shopify Admin.

Click Add language and select Arabic, Urdu, or Hebrew from the list.

Save. The interface refreshes and instantly switches to the chosen RTL layout.

For teams with mixed language preferences, each user can set their own language under Profile → Language without affecting others.

Verify the change on a mobile device or by adjusting the browser’s language preferences to ensure the automatic detection works as expected.

Translating Product Pages with Translate & Adapt

While the Admin UI now speaks RTL, your product content still needs explicit translation. Shopify’s Translate & Adapt app remains the go‑to tool. After installing, open a product, click Translate, and select Arabic, Urdu, or Hebrew. The app creates locale‑specific fields for titles, descriptions, and metafields. Because the Admin now respects RTL, translators will see the editing interface in the same directionality, reducing context switching and errors.

Testing and Best Practices

Device testing – Open the Admin on iOS, Android, and desktop browsers after changing the system language to confirm auto‑selection works.

Theme audit – Review custom Liquid code for hard‑coded dir="ltr" attributes or CSS that forces left alignment. Remove or conditionally apply them based on {{ request.locale }}.

Accessibility check – Ensure screen‑reader labels and ARIA attributes are also localized; the Admin now propagates the lang attribute, but custom apps may need updates.

Performance monitoring – No new API rate limits were introduced, but keep an eye on any locale‑specific webhook handling you implement.

Next Steps

Ready to go multilingual? Enable Arabic, Urdu, or Hebrew today, update your product translations with Translate & Adapt, and run a quick RTL audit of any custom themes or apps. Need help fine‑tuning your store for RTL markets? Reach out to a Shopify Expert or drop a comment below—we’re happy to guide you through a seamless rollout.