While this may seem like a time-saver, it consistently leads to translation issues that are difficult to diagnose - and offers no real benefit in return.
⚠️ Warning: Always uncheck the Translations checkbox when duplicating a product. Copying translations carries no practical benefit and will cause the duplicated product to be silently skipped in future translation runs.
The problem
When you duplicate a product in Shopify, the duplicate dialog includes a Translations checkbox. If this is checked, Shopify copies all existing translations from the original product directly to the new one.
This seems convenient, but it causes a significant problem - the duplicated product arrives with translations already attached, even though its content has not actually been translated yet. From that point on, TLab treats it as a translated product and will skip it in any future translation task set to "not translate" only.
The result is a product that appears translated but is showing copied text from a different product - text that may no longer be accurate once you edit the new product's title, description, or variants.
What if I already duplicated a product with translations copied?
If you have already duplicated a product with the Translations checkbox enabled and have since edited the product content in your default language, Shopify will automatically mark those translations as outdated - meaning the source text has changed, but the translation has not been updated yet.
To fix this, run a translation task and set What to translate to Outdated instead of Not translated only. This tells TLab to retranslate content where the source has changed, and will correctly pick up all duplicated products whose content has been edited.
❌ If you duplicated a product with translations copied but have not yet edited its content in the default language, Shopify will not mark it as outdated - because as far as Shopify is concerned, the source and the translation still match. In this case, you will need to run a translation task set "what to translate" to "All" content to force a fresh translation.
Best practice
When creating new products based on an existing one, always duplicate with the Translations checkbox unchecked. Edit the product content in your default language first, then run a standard translation task. T-Lab will pick it up as untranslated and handle it correctly.