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What changed

Amazon now translates the text inside your product images

On 4 August 2026 Amazon began generating translated copies of any product image that has text on it, in the shopper's preferred language, with no opt-in and no notification. Two things are exempt: your main image, and any image you upload yourself in the right language.

Published by Utlista. Checked Printed product photos of a kettle, a white trainer and a vase laid out in pairs on a light wooden table, with reading glasses and a potted plant.

What changed on 4 August 2026

Amazon announced it in one paragraph, and the paragraph is the whole rule.

Amazon, Seller Forums announcement, 4 August 2026
Your product images with text will now be automatically translated into your customers' preferred language across the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Ireland, Sweden and UK stores. [...] This applies to all sellers with non-media products in these stores. Your main image won't be translated.

That is 14 stores, named. Amazon gives no total of its own, so the count here is the length of Amazon's list. 14 of the 23 marketplaces this site writes for are in it: amazon.fr, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.nl, amazon.pl, amazon.se, amazon.de, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ie, amazon.com.be, amazon.com, amazon.ca, amazon.com.mx, amazon.com.br.

There is nothing to switch on, and nothing told you

There is no enrolment step, no setting, and no message when a translated version of one of your images is published. The first way most sellers find out is by opening a detail page in another store and seeing their own infographic in a language they did not write it in.

Which of your product images Amazon's automatic translation reachesIn scope: every secondary image that has text on it. Amazon generates one translated copy per shopper language, with no opt in and no notification. Never translated: your main image, an image already in the store's language, and media products, which are out of scope entirely. Uploading your own file in the right language removes Amazon's copy.What Amazon's image translationreaches, and what it never touchesIN SCOPEEvery secondary image with text on it.One copy per language, no opt in, no notice.Upload your own file in the right languageand Amazon's copy is removed.NEVER TRANSLATEDYour main imageAn image already in the store's languageMedia products, out of scope entirelyutlista.com
The boundary, as Amazon drew it on 4 August 2026. Two of the three exemptions are properties of the image rather than choices you make, and the third is the override.

Which of your images does it touch?

Everything after the main image, if it has text on it. The main image is the exemption that matters most, because that is the one in search results.

Not translated

  • Your main image. Amazon: it "won't be translated". The hero shot in search results is untouched.
  • Your original image in the store's primary language. Amazon: it "won't change".
  • Media products, outside the scope entirely.

In scope

  • Secondary images carrying text: infographics, comparison charts, dimension diagrams, packaging call-outs.
  • Any image whose text is not in the store's language. Amazon's example is an image "not in German in the Germany store".
  • Text that is part of the product itself, because the system reads characters rather than intent.

It also goes further than crossing a border. In the US, Canada, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Amazon says it creates versions for an individual shopper's language preference, its own examples being Spanish in the US store and French in Canada. So a second version of your artwork can exist inside one store, for one segment of its shoppers.

Why this is the same pattern as the title change

Amazon replaces your content rather than rejecting it. That is the part worth internalising, because it changes where you have to look for the failure.

When Amazon cut titles to 75 characters in July 2026, an over-length title was not bounced back. It was rewritten and published. Identical shape: nothing fails, nothing waits for your approval, the listing stays live, and the words on it are no longer yours. A failure you can see is cheap; this kind is expensive, because the only way to find it is to look. The 75 character title limit is the other page where this pattern shows up.

Where the risk actually is

Not in your marketing adjectives. In the text on an image that somebody is going to rely on.

Amazon says the translations "use AI with quality guardrails before publishing" and that "brand elements, product specifications and visual quality are preserved". It does not define what a guardrail checks. So the question per image is what it costs if one word is wrong.

  • Warnings, dosages and unitsA machine-translated warning inside a JPEG is still the warning the buyer reads. An image is now one more place your safety wording exists in a language nobody on your side approved.
  • Legally required wordingThe EU obligation to show safety information in a language consumers of that Member State easily understand does not care which file format the words were in.
  • Claims in regulated categoriesA benefit claim on a supplement, food, cosmetic or baby product is read carefully in your own language before it ships. The translated version did not go through that reading.
  • Text that is the productA seller in the announcement thread raised printed apparel: the text in a design is in the language it is printed in, and a photograph of it is an image with text on it. The same holds for signage, labels, anything where the lettering is the thing being sold.

GPSR and the language of safety information quotes the two articles behind the second item.

How to take control of it

Amazon documented the override in the same announcement, and it is the useful half of the news.

  1. 1Open Image Manager and read what was generatedAmazon says translated images are visible on the product detail page and in Image Manager. That is where you see them next to the originals rather than guessing from the front end.
  2. 2Upload your own image in the right language to override itAmazon: "If you want to replace a translated image, upload your own images in the correct language. This automatically removes our translated versions from the Product Detail Page." Your file wins.
  3. 3Keep the text out of the image where you canA specification in a bullet point or an attribute is a field you control, in a language you chose. Text baked into artwork was the only part of a listing with no language setting at all.
  4. 4Re-check after you expandThe trigger is the store, not the upload. Adding a marketplace brings every text-bearing image in your catalogue into a new language pair.

Utlista does not touch your images

Said plainly, because this page is on the website of a product you might otherwise assume covers it.

Utlista writes the text fields: title, bullet points, description and backend search terms, per marketplace, in that marketplace's language. It does not read, generate, replace or audit images, and it has no visibility into what Amazon generated from yours. Reviewing those is work this product does not do for you.

Where this comes from

Including the one number the trade write-ups disagreed about, because resolving it quietly would be the wrong way round.

Every quote on this page is from Amazon's own announcement, "Reach more customers with automatically translated product images", posted to the public Seller Forums and carrying a published timestamp of 4 August 2026. It was read in full on 2026-10-21. Amazon's post links onward to a Seller Central help page titled "Image localisation", which is behind the Seller Central login; if you have an account, that page is the authority and overrides anything here.

Two trade write-ups reported the change first and they disagree on how many stores are covered. aNavigator says 14 and names 14. Billion Dollar Sellers says sixteen, then names the same 14 followed by "among them". Amazon's own post names those same stores and gives no total. So 14 are named by Amazon, which is what this page states; whether two further stores are covered and unnamed we cannot confirm, and we will not print a number we cannot point at.

The printed-apparel case is a seller's reply on that same announcement thread, read the same day. One seller's observation, not something Amazon has addressed.

Write the fields properly and the artwork carries less.

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Keep reading

75 character titlesThe same pattern on the text fields: Amazon rewrites rather than rejects.GPSR and languageThe obligation that does not care whether the words were in a JPEG.Local language requirementsWhich of the two language obligations belongs to Amazon and which to the law.Every marketplaceEvery one of them is in the store list Amazon named.

Utlista is not affiliated with Amazon.