---
title: Keep non-Latin handles on import, or transliterate them
date: 2026-09-16
description: Imports now match products and collections with Chinese, Japanese, Cyrillic, or Arabic handles, and a new option converts handles to English letters.
tags: ["Products","Imports","Altera CLI"]
categories: ["Changelog"]
url: https://www.getaltera.com/changelog/2026-09-16-keep-non-latin-handles-or-transliterate-them/
---
Handles with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Cyrillic, Arabic, or other non-Latin characters now import the way Shopify treats them, and a new option converts them to English letters when you want that instead.

---

### 🚀 What's new

- **Convert handles to English letters** - a new import option converts handles to English letters before matching, so `男裝上衣` becomes `nan-zhuang-shang-yi` (see [Convert non-Latin handles to ASCII](https://support.getaltera.com/en/articles/15288906-how-to-bulk-edit-shopify-product-handles-and-keep-your-seo#transliterate-handles)).
- **CLI flag** - `altera import create` accepts `--transliterate-handles` to turn the option on from the command line.

### 🐛 Fixes

- **Non-Latin handles** - re-importing products or collections with Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Cyrillic, Arabic, or other non-Latin handles updates the existing item instead of duplicating it.
- **Non-Latin redirect paths** - finding an existing redirect by a path with non-Latin characters now works, so handle-change redirects and redirect imports update it instead of failing.