WooCommerce: Translate / Rename Content @ Order Emails

WooCommerce order emails customization is possibly the most wanted feature for WooCommerce store owners and developers right now. It is very difficult to edit the default templates and it’s no surprise there are many email customizer plugins out there.

We’ve already seen how to add content to specific WooCommerce emails, how to add custom email CSS, how to display product images, and more, but today I’d like to teach you a quick workaround to edit the default email text strings such as the initial greeting (‘Hi Mary,‘) or other sentences (‘We have finished processing your order.‘, ‘The following note has been added to your order:‘, ‘Just to let you know — we’ve received your order, and it is now being processed:‘, etc.).

With “edit”, of course, I mean either change the text, or completely hide it. So, let’s see how it’s done. Enjoy!

PHP Snippet: Edit / Translate / Hide Text Strings @ WooCommerce Order Emails

Note 1: in the snippet below you find 2 examples. The first one hides the string (in fact it replaces it with an empty string). The second one, on the other hand, replaces the original string with a custom one.

Note 2: inside the str_ireplace function you must enter the original string as the first parameter, exactly as defined by WooCommerce. Sometimes WooCommerce uses weird symbols such as ‘Hi %s,‘, which are actually placeholders. The only way to make this work is to enter exactly that string: ‘Hi %s,‘. You can find these strings inside the plugin files, so I recommend you use a good code editor such as NotePad++ or Visual Studio Code so that you can quickly search through the WooCommerce plugin code.

Note 3: you can add as many $translated = str_ireplace() calls as you wish, one for each edit you want to make.

/**
 * @snippet       Edit Strings @ WooCommerce Emails
 * @how-to        Get CustomizeWoo.com FREE
 * @author        Rodolfo Melogli
 * @compatible    WooCommerce 8
 * @community     Join https://businessbloomer.com/club/
 */

add_filter( 'gettext', 'bbloomer_translate_woocommerce_strings_emails', 9999, 3 );
 
function bbloomer_translate_woocommerce_strings_emails( $translated, $untranslated, $domain ) {
	if ( 'woocommerce' === $domain ) {   
		$translated = str_ireplace( 'Hi %s,', '', $untranslated ); // HIDE
		$translated = str_ireplace( 'Just to let you know — we\'ve received your order #%s, and it is now being processed:', 'Your payment was successful and we are now getting ready for shipping. Expect another email from us with tracking details soon!', $untranslated ); // EDIT
	}
	return $translated;
}

Where to add custom code?

You should place custom PHP in functions.php and custom CSS in style.css of your child theme: where to place WooCommerce customization?

This code still works, unless you report otherwise. To exclude conflicts, temporarily switch to the Storefront theme, disable all plugins except WooCommerce, and test the snippet again: WooCommerce troubleshooting 101

Related content

• WooCommerce: Add Content to a Specific Order Email
  Customizing WooCommerce emails via the WordPress dashboard is not easy and – sometimes – not possible. For example, you can’t edit or add content to them unless you’re familiar with code. Well, here’s a quick example to learn how to add content to any WooCommerce default order email. In this case study, our goal is […]
• WooCommerce: How to Translate / Rename Any String
  There are times you don’t want to translate the whole installation of WooCommerce just for renaming one short string. There are times you need to rename a label or a little thing and don’t feel like installing a bloated translation plugin. It doesn’t matter whether you want to rename a string in the original language […]
• WooCommerce: How to Add a Custom Checkout Field
  Let’s imagine you want to add a custom checkout field (and not an additional billing or shipping field) on the WooCommerce Checkout page. For example, it might be a customer licence number – this has got nothing to do with billing and nothing to do with shipping. Ideally, this custom field could show above the […]
• WooCommerce Visual Hook Guide: Emails
  WooCommerce customizers: the Visual Hook Guide is back! Here’s a visual HTML hook guide for the WooCommerce Emails. This visual guide belongs to my “Visual Hook Guide Series“, that I’ve put together so that you can find WooCommerce hooks quickly and easily by seeing their actual locations. Let me know in the comments if this […]
• WooCommerce: Add To: Cc: Bcc: Email Recipients
  The WooCommerce Email Settings allow you to add custom recipients only for New Order, Cancelled Order, Failed Order and all admin-only emails. But what if you want to add an email recipient to a customer email e.g. the Completed Order one? For example, you need to send it to your dropshipper. Also, you might want […]

Rodolfo Melogli

Business Bloomer Founder

Author, WooCommerce expert and WordCamp speaker, Rodolfo has worked as an independent WooCommerce freelancer since 2011. His goal is to help entrepreneurs and developers overcome their WooCommerce nightmares. Rodolfo loves travelling, chasing tennis & soccer balls and, of course, wood fired oven pizza. Follow @rmelogli