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Allow the user to override winget's locale setting #422

Description

I moved this from a comment to its own issue because it seems to be unique enough to warrant a dedicated feature request.

Description of the new feature/enhancement

I'd like to override the winget locale to change its output language. My OS locale is not English so localized tools make it more difficult to post tutorials and posts for an international audience on my tech blog. This would also help you as developers to get output for bug reports in a language that you can understand.

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

I'd be really happy if you added an environment variable that would enable me to override the winget locale (like LANG=en_US.UTF-8 <command> or LC_MESSAGES en_US.UTF-8 <command> in Linux):

https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Locale-Environment-Variables.html

For example, assume you are a Swedish user in Spain, and you want your programs to handle numbers and dates according to Spanish conventions, and only the messages should be in Swedish. [...] [S]et the LANG variable to es_ES.UTF-8 and the LC_MESSAGES variable to sv_SE.UTF-8 [...].

LC_ALL is an environment variable that overrides all of these. It is typically used in scripts that run particular programs. For example, configure scripts generated by GNU autoconf use LC_ALL to make sure that the configuration tests don’t operate in locale dependent ways.

Other options could include a winget command line parameter though that would need to be provided on every winget call.

A third option is to store it in the proposed JSON configuration (#416) to have a means of persisting the locale override.

Activity

  1. ghost added
    Needs-TriageIssue needs to be triaged
    on Jun 14, 2020
  2. denelon commented on Jun 15, 2020

    @denelon
    Collaborator

    Might be related to #396 Settings Command.

  3. added this to the milestone on Jun 15, 2020
  4. Trenly commented on Jun 16, 2023

    @Trenly
    Contributor

    [Policy] Area-Settings

  5. CanePlayz commented on Jul 10, 2023

    @CanePlayz

    I'd very much like this

  6. removed this from the milestone on Nov 14, 2024
  7. piknockyou commented on Dec 6, 2025

    @piknockyou

    I concur!
    Please add that feature!

  8. docentYT commented on Jun 12, 2026

    @docentYT

    As discovered in #6282 , PrimaryLanguageOverride can be utilised for that feature. It will integrate nicely with the globalization system that winget uses.

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    Area-SettingsIssue related to WinGet SettingsIn-PRIssue related to a PRIssue-FeatureThis is a feature request for the Windows Package Manager client.

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