Glossary

JSON i18n Key Extractor

A JSON i18n key extractor is a tool that reads a nested JSON locale file and outputs all translation keys in flat dot-notation format (e.g. auth.login.title), along with their values and character counts.

Most JavaScript/TypeScript applications store translations in JSON files — one file per language (e.g. en.json, fr.json, de.json). These files are typically nested for organization: a key like 'auth.login.title' is stored as { auth: { login: { title: 'Sign in' } } }. Tools that work with these files need to flatten the structure to process individual strings.

Key extraction is useful for translation audits (which keys are missing in a target locale file?), translation cost estimation (count total characters to estimate translation cost), and preparing strings for a translation management system that expects flat key-value pairs.

Key concepts

  • Flattens nested JSON to dot-notation key paths (auth.login.title)
  • Used for auditing missing translations, cost estimation, and TMS import preparation
  • The free Vernacia JSON Key Extractor tool runs entirely in your browser

How Vernacia uses this

Vernacia provides a free JSON Key Extractor tool at /tools/json-key-extractor. Paste any locale JSON file — flat or deeply nested — and get a searchable table of key paths, values, and character counts with CSV export.

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