A simple, powerful, and user-friendly plugin that adds multilingual support to your WordPress multisite installation, whether using multiple subdomains or folders. Multisite Language Switcher allows you to effortlessly manage translations for posts, pages, custom post types, categories, tags, and custom taxonomies.

The plugin uses flag icons from FamFamFam. Thanks to Mark James for his great work. In addition, I would like to thank Jürgen Mayer for creating the plugin's banner.

Please, don't forget to rate this plugin! 🙂

I have no language options in the General settings.

You might read first WordPress in your language.

But I'd like the interface to stay in English.

You can choose the language of the dashboard in the settings of your user profile.

Do I need a multisite?

It's up to you - of course. But yes, if you want to use the Multisite Language Switcher.

How can I automatically redirect users based on the browser language?

The Multisite Language Switcher does not redirect the users automatically. I'm not sure if the plugin should do that.

How can I add the Multisite Language Switcher to the nav menu of my blog?

Please check the add-on MslsMenu out.

I want to have the languages in an HTML select. How can I do that?

Please check the add-on MslsSelect out.

Can I call a function to get the language of the page the user is viewing?

Yes, you should use the WordPress API function get_locale() but you could also use code like that

$blog     = msls_blog_collection()->get_current_blog();
$language = $blog->get_language();

The class behind it moved to lloc\Msls\Blog\Collection in version 3.0.0. The old name lloc\Msls\MslsBlogCollection still resolves, so existing code keeps working.

If I have another question, where can I ask?

Please visit the MSLS website or use the WordPress support forum for more information.

3.1.0

• New: the switcher keeps the page of a paginated request. A visitor on page 3 of an archive is sent to page 3 of the translated archive instead of the first page, for the pages of an archive as well as for a post which is split by <!--nextpage-->.
• New: a page is only added when the other blog has it. The new Options::get_max_pages() decides that, and a link which would be out of range still points to the first page.
• New: msls_preserve_pagination switches the feature off, msls_pagination_max_pages corrects the number of pages MSLS calculates, and msls_pagination_get adjusts the finished link.
• New: msls_translation_picker_menu hides the "Add from Translation" entry in the menu of a post type, msls_translation_picker_button hides the button next to "Add New". Both get the post type, so a network which only translates pages can keep the entry points there and drop them everywhere else.
• Fix: the "Add from Translation" entry in the admin menu now follows "Add New" instead of sitting between "All Posts" and "Add New".
• Fix: PHP 8.4 raised deprecation notices on every page load. They came from the bundled PHP-DI library, which the plugin no longer ships.
• Fix: three parameters of the content import were declared in a way PHP 8.4 deprecates.

3.0.3

• Fixed: on PHP 7.4 the plugin's dependencies could not be installed, because one of them required PHP 8. MSLS supports PHP 7.4 again, as documented.

3.0.2

• Fixed: with more than 100 users on a blog, opening the settings page raised a PHP notice that ended up in the error log (and in services such as Sentry). The truncated user list is now reported as a hint below the "Reference user" dropdown instead.
• Changed: MSLS no longer runs count_users() to detect the truncation, which removes a costly query from the settings page on blogs with many users.

3.0.1

• Fixed: 3.0.0 could not be published on WordPress.org
• The plugin code is identical to 3.0.0.

3.0.0

• New: Quick Create - create the translated post straight from the editor metabox, or pick a source post on the new Add from Translation submenu (single and bulk). Backed by a REST endpoint and switchable in the settings.
• New: msls_quick_create_capability lets integrations override the Quick Create permission checks. Additional filters cover the post data, the inserted post, the REST response, the untranslated-posts list and the mapped taxonomy terms.
• New: filter hooks for the AJAX suggest results of the post and term metaboxes.
• New: a developer reference in docs/ - public API, every hook, integration snippets and the Playwright setup.
• Changed: the lloc\Msls\ namespace is split into per-concern sub-namespaces. Every pre-3.0 class name (MslsOptions, MslsLink, MslsOutput, ...) keeps working through a backwards-compatibility alias, so add-ons and custom code do not need changes.
• Changed: the public helper functions moved to includes/api.php, and the $attr argument of msls_get_switcher() is now optional.
• Fixed: add-ons such as MslsMenu and MslsSelect could be silently disabled because the plugin registered its classes too late. Aliases and API functions are now available the moment the plugin file is loaded.
• Fixed: authorization is checked on the destination post during content import, and the ContentImporter permission and post type checks were corrected.
• Fixed: no home_url() fallback for taxonomy and query archives anymore.
• Fixed: broken links on the page for the latest posts.
• Fixed: several issues in the blog collection.
• Internal: strict typing throughout, PHPStan level 8 clean, ABSPATH guards, Plugin Check and PHPCS findings addressed, a wp-env based local multisite and a Playwright end-to-end suite.

2.10.1

• Fixed: deprecated function warning pointed to a non-existent function.
• Documentation: README.md code snippets reflect the new function names.

2.10.0

• New: prefixed public helper functions (msls_get_*, msls_the_switcher) with deprecation shims for the legacy names.
• New: action hook names are exposed as constants for safer programmatic use.
• Accessibility: aria-current="page" on the active language link.
• Fixed: path-related issue affecting asset/loader resolution.

The full history is kept in the separate Changelog.

• Use the WordPress admin to install the plugin from there or
• Download the plugin and uncompress it with your preferred unzip programme and copy the entire directory in the plugin directory of your WordPress blog (/wp-content/plugins)
• Activate the plugin in your plugin administration page (by the network administrator on all the blogs or by the blog administrator for each particular blog).
• After activation, configure the plugin once in each blog under Settings -> Multisite Language Switcher

Now you can:

• Connect your translated pages and posts in Posts -> Edit or Pages -> Edit
• Connect your translated categories and tags in Posts -> Categories or Posts -> Tags
• connect your Custom Post Types and Custom Taxonomies across languages
• create a missing translation in one step - straight from the editor metabox, or from the Add from Translation submenu, which lists everything that is not translated yet and can create translations in bulk (Quick Create, new in 3.0)
• use the widget, the Gutenberg block, the shortcode [sc_msls] and/or a content_filter which displays a hint to the user if a translation is available
• you can find also a shortcode for the widget [sc_msls_widget]
• optionally you can place the code <?php if ( function_exists( 'msls_the_switcher' ) ) msls_the_switcher(); ?> directly in your theme files

Review the Multisite Language Switcher Website for more information. Developers will find the API functions, every action and filter, and a set of integration snippets in the developer documentation.

Plugin configuration with labels



Plugin configuration with flag



Posts list with label



Post list with flag



Edit post with label and select2



Edit post with flag and dropdown



Non-styled output of the widget, block and shortcode