Intercom Multilingual Help Center Problems? Here's How to Fix Them

Setting up a multilingual help center in Intercom should be straightforward. In practice, teams run into issues that aren't covered in the official docs.

This guide covers the most common problems we see-and how to fix them.

"Language Redirect Not Working"

The problem: When an article isn't available in the user's selected language, they should be redirected to the default language version. Instead, they hit a 404 or see a broken page.

Common causes:

1. Custom domain routing misconfigured. If you're using a custom help center domain (like help.yourcompany.com), check your DNS settings. The redirect logic depends on proper CNAME configuration.

2. Collection-level language settings conflict with article settings. Intercom handles languages at both collection and article levels. If a collection has German enabled but an individual article doesn't, redirect behavior gets unpredictable.

How to fix:

• Test with the default Intercom URL first (yourworkspace.intercom.help/...). If redirects work there but not on your custom domain, the issue is DNS/routing.
• For DNS issues: Remove your CNAME, wait for Intercom's Quick Setup tool to reset (can take up to 12 hours), then reconfigure.
• Check that every article in a collection has consistent language settings.

"Can't Add New Languages"

The problem: You go to Settings → Help Center → Languages, but the option to add languages is grayed out or missing.

Common causes:

1. Development workspace limitations. Intercom's dev workspaces have restricted Help Center settings. You can create articles and collections, but language settings require a production workspace.

2. Permission issues. Only admins with full Help Center access can modify language settings. Check your role in Settings → Team.

How to fix:

• If you're in a dev workspace and need to test translations, you'll need to use your production workspace or request Intercom support to enable language settings for testing.
• For permission issues, ask your workspace admin to grant Help Center settings access.

"No Easy Way to Copy Content for Translation"

The problem: You've added a new language (like Korean or German). Now you need to translate 50+ articles. There's no "copy all content to new language" button. Copy-pasting from the editor loses formatting.

Why this happens: Intercom's Knowledge Hub wasn't built for translation workflows. Each language version is treated as a separate article, with no connection to the original.

Workarounds:

1. Export and reimport. Use Intercom's article export (CSV), translate externally, reimport. Clunky but works for large batches.

2. Use a translation app. Apps like TranslateDesk sync directly with your Intercom help center. You translate in the app, it pushes back to Intercom-no copy-paste.

3. Build an API integration. If you have development resources, Intercom's Articles API lets you programmatically copy content between language versions. But this requires custom code.

The "copy content to" feature doesn't exist in Intercom because their architecture treats each language as independent. This is a design choice, not a bug-but it does make translation painful.

"Fin AI Won't Translate My Content"

The problem: You've heard Intercom's Fin AI can respond in multiple languages. But when users ask questions in Spanish, Fin gives answers in English.

What's actually happening: Fin can detect languages and respond in them, but it won't auto-translate your existing English knowledge base. You need to manually create content in each language you want Fin to use.

How to fix:

• Create translated versions of your most important articles (FAQs, getting started guides) in each supported language.
• Train Fin on language-specific content by uploading translated training data.
• For comprehensive coverage, use a translation tool to maintain parallel content across all languages.

"RTL Languages Display Incorrectly"

The problem: Articles in Hebrew, Arabic, or other right-to-left languages show formatting issues-text alignment wrong, bullets reversed, overall layout broken.

Causes:

• Intercom's Help Center has limited native RTL support
• Custom CSS from your theme may conflict with RTL text direction

Partial solutions:

1. Create a dedicated RTL collection. Rather than mixing RTL and LTR content, create a separate section for RTL languages. This lets you apply RTL-specific styling.

2. Add custom CSS. In your Help Center customization, add RTL-specific overrides:

[lang="he"], [lang="ar"] {
  direction: rtl;
  text-align: right;
}

3. Limit RTL to essential content. If full RTL support is too complex, translate only critical articles (release notes, billing, urgent issues) and keep secondary content in your primary language.

This is a known limitation. Intercom's Help Center was built primarily for LTR languages, and RTL support remains inconsistent.

"Workflow Messages Don't Support Translation"

The problem: You want to send automated messages (welcome series, product updates, etc.) in multiple languages. But Intercom's Proactive Support doesn't have the same language branching as the Help Center.

Current state: App Store integrations mostly cover Help Center articles or the Inbox. Proactive Support (workflows, series, product tours) has limited translation support.

Workarounds:

1. Use audience rules. Create separate workflows for each language, triggered by user language preferences or browser locale.

2. Dynamic content blocks. Intercom supports conditional content in some message types. You can show different text based on language attributes-but this gets complex with more than 2-3 languages.

3. Accept the limitation. For small teams, maintaining separate workflows per language may not be worth the overhead. Consider translating only your highest-impact automated sequences.

The Root Problem: Intercom Wasn't Built for Translation

Most of these issues trace back to a core architectural choice: Intercom treats each language as separate content rather than connected translations.

This means:

• No automatic sync when you update English content
• No "translate this article" workflow
• No visibility into which articles are missing translations
• No quality checks between language versions

For teams with 5-10 articles, manual management works. For teams with 50+ articles in 3+ languages, it becomes unsustainable.

How TranslateDesk Solves This

TranslateDesk was built specifically for Intercom help center translation:

• One-click translation. Select articles, pick a language, translate. Content pushes directly to Intercom.
• Sync tracking. See which articles are missing translations, which are outdated, which are up to date.
• Powered by DeepL. Professional-quality machine translation, not generic Google Translate.
• Works with your existing structure. We read your collections and articles-no migration, no copy-paste.

If you're hitting these problems and managing translations is eating into time you could spend on support, try TranslateDesk free.

Related Resources

• Intercom Translation: Complete guide to translating your Intercom Help Center
• Does Intercom Support Translation? Complete Guide
• Intercom Localization Setup Guide

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Have a problem we didn't cover? Contact us and we'll add it to this guide.