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I am running a non-english Windows 7 system, and apparently Oracle SQL Developer (version 3.0.04.34, 64-bit) tries to auto-guess my preferred language based on the OS. Is there any way to change the language to english?

I've tried the tip found at http://misteratmisis.com/infotech/how-change-oracle-sql-developer-interface-japanese-english, namely adding the VM options

AddVMOption -Duser.language=en
AddVMOption -Duser.country=US

to file ide.conf in directory

/ide/bin

within the SQL Developer installation directory, as suggested, but that didn't help.

Solution (edited on 13.09.2012):

I decided to try again the solution proposed by Alex K. and this time it worked, namely adding

AddVMOption  -Duser.language=en

to the file sqldeveloper.conf file located in sqldeveloper\bin\ folder. I presume that it did work now but not before, because meanwhile I have changed my UAC (user access control) settings in Windows 7 so that I am administrator by default. What happened before was probably that even though the changes appeared to be there, the configuration file read by the program was another one (shadow copy).

Solution for Mac OS X (added on 26.02.2016):

Edit file at

/Applications/SQLDeveloper.app/Contents/Resources/sqldeveloper/sqldeveloper/bin/sqldeveloper.conf

and add the line

AddVMOption  -Duser.language=en

(Tested with SQL Developer 4.1.3.20)

simon
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    Apparently somebody voted to close this as off-topic. I considered briefly asking this at superuser.com, but as Oracle SQL Developer is a tool primarily used by developers I think this question is most relevant here. As stated in SO FAQ, questions about "software tools commonly used by programmers" should be welcome on SO, so I can't imagine this question being off-topic. However, if this question could be improved I welcome any suggestions. – simon Oct 16 '11 at 18:56
  • it worked like a breeze! simon you are da man! – Pierluigi Vernetto Sep 17 '13 at 07:38
  • Adding: AddVMOption -Duser.language=en to file: /ide/bin did not work for me either **until I started sqldeveloper with administrator rights.** – Piotr Jul 25 '17 at 11:11
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    If you are limited by missing admin privileges, go for the solution from @anilech . I have similar problems and created a .bat file calling `sqldeveloper.exe --AddVMOption=-Duser.language=en` – D. Lohrsträter Nov 18 '21 at 16:19
  • If you are not the admin and need a workaround, besides creating a .bat, you may also modify your windows shortcut by adding the extra option. – Daniel Rust Mar 16 '22 at 13:12

8 Answers8

155

Try to set user.language and user.country properties in sqldeveloper.conf file located in sqldeveloper\bin folder (%APPDATA%\sqldeveloper\<version>\product.conf for more recent versions) .
Sample for set french language:

IncludeConfFile ../../ide/bin/ide.conf

SetJavaHome D:\jdk1.6.0_25

AddVMOption  -Doracle.ide.util.AddinPolicyUtils.OVERRIDE_FLAG=true

AddVMOption -Dsun.java2d.ddoffscreen=false

AddVMOption -Dwindows.shell.font.languages=
AddVMOption -Duser.language=fr
AddVMOption -Duser.country=FR
AddVMOption  -XX:MaxPermSize=128M

AddVMOption -Doracle.jdbc.mapDateToTimestamp=false  
IncludeConfFile  sqldeveloper-nondebug.conf

To switch off language try to remove its support by editing oracle.translated.locales option in ide.boot file (located in ide\bin folder).
For example, if I want to 'break' french language support this option will be:

oracle.translated.locales = de,es,it,ja,ko,pt_BR,zh_CN,zh_TW

The original value was:

oracle.translated.locales = de,fr,es,it,ja,ko,pt_BR,zh_CN,zh_TW

The configuration above (sqldeveloper.conf file) will be wrong after remove french support and the french language does not appear as GUI localization.

Alex K
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  • Thanks for the feedback. In your case the language is possibly english because there is no russian language support for the program and it falls back to english? – simon Oct 17 '11 at 11:13
  • Did you download localization (non-english)? I can try to change language – Alex K Oct 17 '11 at 11:35
  • No, I just downloaded the standard version from http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/sql-developer/downloads/index.html – simon Oct 17 '11 at 11:38
  • Ok, I'll try to set french language – Alex K Oct 17 '11 at 11:39
  • I've just successfully set french language for gui, but russian doesn't work – Alex K Oct 17 '11 at 12:21
  • I've just add info to my answer. Please, try to do the same – Alex K Oct 17 '11 at 12:28
  • I tried setting the user.language and user.country properties exactly as you did (tested also with en/EN) but the language did not change from German to French or English. Possibly the problem lies within Windows 7 - AFAIK Win7 sometimes makes "shadow" copies of some configuration files, hiding the changes made by the user to configuration files. – simon Oct 17 '11 at 13:34
  • I'm using Win7 too. Oracle SQL Developer seems to be portable application, you can try to start it from another folder. Did you try to reboot OS? – Alex K Oct 17 '11 at 13:44
  • I rebooted the OS, still no change. This is really a mystery.. :/ – simon Oct 17 '11 at 15:34
  • May be some of your config files already has the same options and override this new ones? You can check both installation folder and application data folder. – Alex K Oct 18 '11 at 05:53
  • I checked everything in C:\Users\simon\AppData\Roaming\SQL Developer but no conflicting settings were found. I even searched for "language" in every file and checked all the settings, but no odd results. I made the same search in C:\Program Files (x86)\sqldeveloper64-3.0.04.34-no-jre, no conflicting settings there either. I'm starting to give up.. – simon Oct 18 '11 at 13:38
  • @simon I've just find another solution ))) – Alex K Oct 20 '11 at 12:52
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    For recent versions, the recommend place to add the option seems to be "%APPDATA%\sqldeveloper\\product.conf". – Flávio Etrusco Dec 16 '15 at 02:34
  • If you're using SQL Developer on Linux, the configuration file is located in: ~/.sqldeveloper/18.4.0/product.conf – mmarquezvacas Feb 07 '19 at 18:50
85

You can also set language at runtime

sqldeveloper.exe --AddVMOption=-Duser.language=en

to avoid editing sqldeveloper.conf every time you install new version.

anilech
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    As someone who works on Korean systems all the time, thank you. This is a much better alternative to switching the default setup. – estebro Jul 15 '15 at 12:51
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    Thanks, I picked this answer considering it was the easiest for me to change, and it suits me well. – trincot Oct 20 '16 at 14:02
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    +1 for nice solution, even useful for users without admin privileges and having pre-installed SW on Company Computers and don't want to consider it whenever a new version gets installed. – D. Lohrsträter Nov 18 '21 at 14:28
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    It was the best option to me. Thanks. – Souza Mar 07 '22 at 13:40
53

You can also configure directly on the file ..sqldeveloper\ide\bin\ide.conf:

Just add the JVM Option:

AddVMOption -Duser.language=en

The file will be like this:

enter image description here

John John Pichler
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7

Or use the menu: Tools->Preferences->Database->NLS and change language and territory. enter image description here

galeop
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    doesn't change the application's language for me – low_rents Jun 19 '17 at 09:01
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    Actually this time it didn't work for me neither (v20.2) – galeop Sep 24 '20 at 14:20
  • These are just database NLS settings, which controls how database behaves on error messages etc. It doesn't have anything to do with the applications language! This tab is similar to setting environment variable (e.g. for sqlplus) to NLS_LANG=EN_SP – D. Lohrsträter Nov 18 '21 at 14:33
6

With SQL Developer 4.x, the language option is to be added to ..\sqldeveloper\bin\sqldeveloper.conf, rather than ..\sqldeveloper\bin\ide.conf:

# ----- MODIFICATION BEGIN -----
AddVMOption -Duser.language=en
# ----- MODIFICATION END -----
Volker Weber
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    I can't agree with you. I'm using SQL Developer 4.1.3. I changed `ide.conf` and worked well. – Haozhe Xie Jun 10 '16 at 14:46
  • @HaozheXie I am on 4.2.0 and `ide.conf` doesn't exist. adding the line in `sqldeveloper.conf` like the answer states worked for me. – low_rents Jun 19 '17 at 09:20
4

Before installation use the Control Panel Region and Language Preferences tool to change everything (Format, Keyboard default input, language for non Unicode programs) to English. Revert to the original selections after the installation.

Diomidis Spinellis
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1

On MAC High Sierra (10.13.6)

cd /Users/vkrishna/.sqldeveloper/18.2.0

nano product.conf

on the last line add

AddVMOption -Duser.language=en

Save the file and restart.

=======================================

If you are using standalone Oracle Data Modeller

find ~/ -name "datamodeler.conf"

and edit this file

cd /Users/vkrishna//Desktop/OracleDataModeler-18.2.0.179.0756.app/Contents/Resources/datamodeler/datamodeler/bin/

Add somewhere in the last 

AddVMOption -Duser.language=en

save and restart, done!

vimal krishna
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+> In Oracle SQL Developer, you can follow steps by steps as the below image:

enter image description here

+> After opening the file in step 3, you can add this text "AddVMOption -Duser.language=en" to this file and save it.

+> After saving the file, reopen Oracle SQL Developer and check the result.

Suraj Rao
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SoftwareEngineer
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