Can Poedit Be Used to Translate WordPress Themes and Plugins?

Yes. Poedit is built around gettext (PO) files, which is the format WordPress itself, its themes, and its plugins use for translations. Poedit Pro adds explicit WordPress awareness: according to the site, it "understands WordPress, its themes and plugins, and will help you translate them whether they are stored remotely, or locally on your drive." So you can use it both for a theme/plugin folder sitting on your machine and for translation files pulled from a remote location.

Why Poedit fits WordPress translation

WordPress localization runs on gettext, and Poedit was designed for gettext first. The site states it has "full gettext support" and was built to handle translation using gettext (PO), the format used by PHP projects such as Drupal and WordPress, Python projects like Django, and most software running on Linux.

That means the core workflow — scanning source strings, tracking changes, and editing translations — maps directly onto how WordPress themes and plugins store their .po and .mo files.

What you can actually do

• Translate a theme or plugin locally. Point Poedit at the project's translation catalog and work through the strings on your drive.
• Translate a remote project. The Pro version handles WordPress projects "stored remotely," so you don't have to keep everything in a local folder.
• Track changes over time. Poedit scans your code and tracks changes in translations, which matters when a theme or plugin is updated and new strings appear.
• Work at scale. One user, Egill Erlendsson of Automattic, reports using Poedit to translate "40K strings for WordPress and WordPress related projects so far."

Local vs. remote: which applies to you

Collaboration and cloud platforms

If your WordPress translation isn't a solo effort, Poedit's built-in support for cloud localization platforms lets you access Crowdin or Localazy projects and translate directly from the app. That's useful when a theme or plugin's strings are managed by a team rather than a single translator.

Practical notes before you start

• PO vs. MO. WordPress uses both: .po files are the human-editable source, .mo files are the compiled version WordPress loads. Poedit works with the PO side; you'll still need the compiled output in place for the translation to appear on the site.
• Pro is a separate download. The site distinguishes a free download from Poedit Pro, and the WordPress-specific remote handling and machine-translation features are described under Pro. Check the Pro page for what's included before assuming a feature is in the free version.
• Machine translation and pre-translation are Pro features aimed at speeding up large catalogs — relevant if you're facing thousands of strings rather than a handful.

Bottom line

Poedit is a legitimate tool for translating WordPress themes and plugins, and its Pro tier is explicitly positioned for that use case, including remote projects and cloud platform integration. If you're translating a local theme or plugin with a modest string count, the gettext foundation is enough. If you're handling remote files, large catalogs, or team workflows, the Pro features are what you'd want to evaluate.