How to add custom locale to Plesk?

Gilson Siqueira

Updated January 15, 2026 03:02

kb: how-to Plesk for Linux ABT: Group B

Question

How to add a new locale (create custom language files) in Plesk?

Answer

In the examples below, the English 'en-US' locale is used as the source, and the Czech 'cs-CZ' locale is used as the new target.

Log into the server via SSH.
Copy the existing locale directories (e.g., 'en-US') to the new locale path (e.g., 'cs-CZ'):

CONFIG_TEXT: cp -npr /usr/local/psa/admin/application/admin/resources/languages/en-US/ /usr/local/psa/admin/application/admin/resources/languages/cs-CZ/ cp -npr /usr/local/psa/admin/application/default/resources/languages/en-US/ /usr/local/psa/admin/application/default/resources/languages/cs-CZ/ cp -npr /usr/local/psa/admin/plib/locales/en-US/ /usr/local/psa/admin/plib/locales/cs-CZ/ cp -npr /usr/local/psa/admin/application/smb/resources/languages/en-US/ /usr/local/psa/admin/application/smb/resources/languages/cs-CZ/
Rename the files inside the new directory according to the locale code:

CONFIG_TEXT: cd /usr/local/psa/admin/plib/locales/cs-CZ rename 's/en-US/cs-CZ/' *

Note: If the rename command is not available or works differently on your OS (e.g., CentOS), you may need to use the mv command to rename files manually.
Modify the messages_*.php file to replace the locale string:

CONFIG_TEXT: sed -i 's/en-US/cs-CZ/g' ./messages_cs-CZ.php
Modify (or create) the meta.xml file to reflect the locale name in the Plesk UI:

CONFIG_TEXT: vi /usr/local/psa/admin/plib/locales/cs-CZ/meta.xml

The file content should look as follows:

CONFIG_TEXT: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>  <locale> <language>Česky</language> <country>Czech</country> </locale>

Note: Custom language and country names should be placed inside <language> and <country> tags.
Register the new locale in the Plesk database:

CONFIG_TEXT: plesk db "replace into locales values ('cs-CZ', 'true');"
Modify the files according to language specifics. When logged in using the new locale, GUI items will be reflected accordingly.

For more information check the Plesk localization guide.