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Next.js 13
Server Components (beta)

Usage in Server Components (beta)

Next.js 13 introduces support for React Server Components (opens in a new tab) in the app directory. next-intl is adopting the new capabilities and is currently offering a beta version to early adopters, who are already building apps with the app directory.

⚠️

The app directory is currently in beta, patterns are still emerging and APIs may change. Please use this at your own risk, knowing that you might have to face a migration effort when the app directory becomes stable.

Current beta version

npm install next-intl@2.12.0-beta.1

This beta version was tested with next@13.2.0.

Roadmap

  • ✅ All APIs from next-intl can be used in Server Components.
  • 💡 Currently SSR-only (i.e. no generateStaticParams), therefore use CDN caching.

For details, see the pending pull request for Server Components support (opens in a new tab).

Getting started

If you haven't done so already, create a Next.js 13 app that uses the app directory (opens in a new tab). All pages should be moved within a [locale] folder so that we can use this segment to provide content in different languages (e.g. /en, /en/about, etc.).

Start by creating the following file structure:

├── messages (1)
│   ├── en.json
│   └── ...
├── i18n.ts (2)
├── next.config.js (3)
├── middleware.ts (4)
└── app
    └── [locale]
        ├── layout.tsx (5)
        └── page.tsx (6)

Now, set up the files as follows:

messages/en.json

Messages can be provided locally or loaded from a remote data source (e.g. a translation management system). Use whatever suits your workflow best.

The simplest option is to create JSON files locally based on locales (opens in a new tab).

messages/en.json
{
  "Index": {
    "title": "Hello world!"
  }
}

i18n.ts

next-intl creates a configuration once per request and makes it available to all Server Components. Here you can provide messages depending the locale of the user.

i18n.ts
import {getRequestConfig} from 'next-intl/server';
 
export default getRequestConfig(async ({locale}) => ({
  messages: (await import(`./messages/${locale}.json`)).default
}));

next.config.js

Now, set up the plugin and provide the path to your configuration.

next.config.js
const withNextIntl = require('next-intl/plugin')(
  // This is the default (also the `src` folder is supported out of the box)
  './i18n.ts'
);
 
module.exports = withNextIntl({
  // Other Next.js configuration ...
  experimental: {appDir: true}
});

middleware.ts

The middleware matches a locale for the request and handles redirects and rewrites accordingly.

middleware.ts
import createIntlMiddleware from 'next-intl/middleware';
 
export default createIntlMiddleware({
  // A list of all locales that are supported
  locales: ['en', 'de'],
 
  // If this locale is matched, pathnames work without a prefix (e.g. `/about`)
  defaultLocale: 'en'
});
 
export const config = {
  // Skip all paths that aren't pages that you'd like to internationalize
  matcher: ['/((?!api|_next|favicon.ico|assets).*)']
};

app/[locale]/layout.tsx

The locale that was matched by the middleware is available via useLocale and can be used to configure the document language.

app/[locale]/layout.tsx
import {useLocale} from 'next-intl';
import {notFound} from 'next/navigation';
 
export default function LocaleLayout({children, params}) {
  const locale = useLocale();
 
  // Show a 404 error if the user requests an unknown locale
  if (params.locale !== locale) {
    notFound();
  }
 
  return (
    <html lang={locale}>
      <body>{children}</body>
    </html>
  );
}

app/[locale]/page.tsx

Use translations in your page components or anywhere else!

app/[locale]/page.tsx
import {useTranslations} from 'next-intl';
 
export default function Index() {
  const t = useTranslations('Index');
  return <h1>{t('title')}</h1>;
}

That's all it takes! Now you can internationalize your apps on the server side.

If you've encountered an issue, you can explore the code for a working example (opens in a new tab) (demo (opens in a new tab)).

If you're in a transitioning phase, either from the pages directory to the app directory, or from Client Components to the Server Components beta, you can apply NextIntlClientProvider additionally.

Routing

Link

next-intl provides a drop-in replacement for next/link that will automatically prefix the href with the current locale as necessary. If the default locale is matched, the href remains unchanged and no prefix is added.

import {Link} from 'next-intl';
 
// When the user is on `/en`, the link will point to `/en/about`
<Link href="/about">About</Link>
 
// You can override the `locale` to switch to another language
<Link href="/" locale="de">Switch to German</Link>

useRouter

If you need to navigate programmatically (e.g. in response to a form submission), next-intl provides a convience API that wraps useRouter from Next.js and automatically applies the locale of the user.

'use client';
 
import {useRouter} from 'next-intl/client';
 
const router = useRouter();
 
// When the user is on `/en`, the router will navigate to `/en/about`
router.push('/about');

usePathname

To retrieve the pathname without a potential locale prefix, you can call usePathname.

'use client';
 
import {usePathname} from 'next-intl/client';
 
// When the user is on `/en`, this will be `/`
const pathname = usePathname();

redirect

If you want to interrupt the render of a Server Component and redirect to another page, you can invoke the redirect function from next-intl. This wraps the redirect function from Next.js (opens in a new tab) and automatically applies the current locale.

import {redirect} from 'next-intl/server';
 
export default async function Profile() {
  const user = await fetchUser();
 
  if (!user) {
    // When the user is on `/en/profile`, this will be `/en/login`
    redirect('/login');
  }
 
  // ...
}

Switching to Client Components

If you need to use translations in Client Components, the best approach is to pass the generated labels as props.

[locale]/faq/page.tsx
import {useTranslations} from 'next-intl';
import Expandable from './Expandable';
 
export default function FAQ() {
  const t = useTranslations('FAQ');
  return <Expandable title={t('title')}>{t('description')}</Expandable>;
}
Expandable.tsx
'use client';
 
import {useState} from 'react';
 
function Expandable({title, children}) {
  const [expanded, setExpanded] = useState(false);
 
  function onToggle() {
    setExpanded(!expanded);
  }
 
  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={onToggle}>{title}</button>
      {expanded && <p>{children}</p>}
    </div>
  );
}

This way your messages never leave the server and the client only needs to load the code that is necessary for initializing your interactive components.

If you absolutely need to use functionality from next-intl on the client side, you can wrap the respective components with NextIntlClientProvider (example code (opens in a new tab)). Note however that this will increase your client bundle size.

Global request configuration

If you'd like to apply global configuration like formats, defaultTranslationValues, timeZone, now, or error handling functions like onError and getMessageFallback, you can provide these in i18n.ts.

i18n.ts
import {headers} from 'next/headers';
import {getRequestConfig} from 'next-intl/server';
 
export default getRequestConfig(async ({locale}) => ({
  messages: (await import(`../messages/${locale}.json`)).default,
 
  // You can read from headers or cookies here if necessary
  timeZone: headers().get('x-time-zone') ?? 'Europe/Berlin'
}));

Middleware configuration

The middleware handles rewrites and redirects based on the detected user locale.

middleware.ts
import createIntlMiddleware from 'next-intl/middleware';
 
export default createIntlMiddleware({
  // A list of all locales that are supported
  locales: ['en', 'de'],
 
  // If no locale matches, this will be used by default
  defaultLocale: 'en',
 
  // Optionally configure a list of domains where the `defaultLocale` is changed.
  // When a locale has a matching domain, this is preferred to a locale prefix.
  domains: [
    {
      domain: 'example.de',
      defaultLocale: 'de'
    }
  ],
 
  // Sets the `Link` response header to notify search engines about
  // links to the content in other languages (defaults to `true`).
  alternateLinks: true
});
 
export const config = {
  // Skip all paths that aren't pages that you'd like to internationalize.
  // If you use the `public` folder, make sure your static assets are ignored
  // (e.g. by moving them to a shared folder that is referenced here).
  matcher: ['/((?!api|_next|favicon.ico|assets).*)']
};

The locale is matched based on this priority order:

  1. Locale prefix: The pathname is prefixed with a configured locale (e.g. /en).
  2. Domain: The host of the requested URL matches against an item in the domains list. The host is read from the x-forwarded-host or alternatively the host header.
  3. Cookie: There's an existing cookie that contains the locale that was matched from a previous request.
  4. accept-language header: The available locales are matched against the accept-language header (opens in a new tab).
  5. Default fallback: If nothing else matches, then the defaultLocale is used.

If the default locale matches, the request will be rewritten to the corresponding sub path (e.g. /about to /en/about). If a non-default locale is matched, then the user is redirected either to the respective sub path (e.g. / to /de) or a domain (e.g. /about to example.de/about).

Localizing pathnames

If you want to localize the pathnames of your app, you can accomplish this by using appropriate rewrites (opens in a new tab).

next.config.js
const withNextIntl = require('next-intl/plugin')();
 
module.exports = withNextIntl({
  experimental: {appDir: true},
  rewrites() {
    return [
      {
        source: '/de/über',
        destination: '/de/about'
      }
    ];
  }
});

Since next-intl isn't aware of the rewrites you've configured, you likely want to make some adjustments:

  1. Turn off the alternateLinks option in the middleware and provide search engine hints about localized versions of your content (opens in a new tab) by yourself.
  2. Translate the pathnames you're passing to the routing APIs from next-intl (example (opens in a new tab)).

Using internationalization outside of components

If you need to use translated messages in functions like generateMetadata, you can import awaitable versions of the functions that you usually call as hooks from next-intl/server.

app/[locale]/layout.tsx
import {getTranslations} from 'next-intl/server';
 
export async function generateMetadata() {
  const t = await getTranslations('Metadata');
 
  return {
    title: t('title'),
    description: t('description')
  };
}

These functions are available from next-intl/server for usage outside of components:

import {
  getTranslations, // like `useTranslations`
  getFormatter, // like `useFormatter`
  getLocale, // like `useLocale`
  getNow, // like `useNow`
  getTimeZone // like `useTimeZone`
} from 'next-intl/server';

CDN caching

Since next-intl is currently SSR-only, it's a good idea to use CDN caching (opens in a new tab) via headers (opens in a new tab) in next.config.js to get the same level of performance from SSR'd pages (learn more (opens in a new tab)).

next.config.js
const ms = require('ms');
const withNextIntl = require('next-intl/plugin')();
 
module.exports = withNextIntl({
  // ... Other config
 
  headers() {
    return [
      {
        // Cache all content pages
        source: '/((?!_next|assets|favicon.ico).*)',
        headers: [
          {
            key: 'Cache-Control',
            value: [
              `s-maxage=` + ms('1d') / 1000,
              `stale-while-revalidate=` + ms('1y') / 1000
            ].join(', ')
          }
        ],
 
        // If you're deploying on a host that doesn't support the `vary` header (e.g. Vercel),
        // make sure to disable caching for prefetch requests for Server Components.
        missing: [
          {
            type: 'header',
            key: 'Next-Router-Prefetch'
          }
        ]
      }
    ];
  }
});

Providing feedback

If you have feedback about using next-intl in the app directory, feel free to leave feedback in the PR which implements the React Server Components support (opens in a new tab).