Notion Windows app in Japanese: the setting is not in the installer

The download page for the Notion desktop app offers a choice, but not the one people expect. It splits by operating system, by package format, and by processor. There is no Japanese build and no English build, and searching for a localised installer produces nothing, because the interface language is not decided at install time at all. It is an account setting, which has consequences most guides never mention: changing it on a Windows machine changes it on the Mac too, and reinstalling never fixes a language problem.

What the installer decides, and what it does not

The desktop app is published for macOS on Apple silicon, macOS on Intel x64, Windows MSIX x64, Windows MSIX ARM64, Windows .exe x64 and Windows .exe ARM64. Every one of those is a package format and a processor architecture. None of them is a language.

That is worth stating because the search behaviour behind a query for a Japanese Windows app assumes the opposite. Plenty of desktop software does ship localised builds, or asks for a language during setup, and someone carrying that expectation will scan the download page repeatedly looking for a menu that is not there.

The version floor is set per operating system rather than per language too. Notion documents the desktop requirements as macOS 12 or above, and on the Windows side as Windows 10 version 21H2 or above, plus Windows Server 2016. Web access is described by browser generation instead, with Chrome specified as the last eight major Extended stable releases and Firefox, Safari and Edge as the last two major releases.

Those two ways of writing the requirement behave differently as a machine ages. An OS number freezes the moment a machine stops receiving system updates. A browser generation keeps moving as long as the browser itself updates, which is why an old machine often keeps working in a browser long after the installer refuses it.

Where the language setting actually lives

On desktop, the path is Settings in the sidebar, then Preferences, then the dropdown next to Language under Language and time. Selecting a language applies it immediately.

Notion currently lists 22 languages: English, English (GB), Japanese, French, German, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Bahasa Indonesia, Arabic, Hebrew and Italian. Japanese arrived on 12 October 2021, announced as available in beta on the web first, with mobile and desktop apps rolling out in batches over the following weeks.

Mobile follows a different rule. Notion documents that on mobile, the app language follows the language ranking in system preferences, so there is no in-app dropdown on a phone. Anyone who sees Japanese on the desktop and English on the phone is looking at that difference, not at a bug.

There is one more behaviour that shows how far the setting reaches. Setting the display language to Arabic or Hebrew flips the interface of the desktop and mobile apps to right to left. A setting that can reverse the layout of an application is clearly not a property of the installer, and that is the clearest evidence that reinstalling will never change it.

What being in Japanese does and does not cover

The setting changes the chrome around the content. Menu names, button labels, settings screens, block names in the slash command menu, error messages and empty state text all switch.

What does not switch is the content. Pages written in English stay in English. Database property names typed by a colleague stay as typed. Template galleries brought in from an English source keep their original wording, and shared workspaces show whatever the author entered, since a page has one set of text and each viewer sees it in that language regardless of their own preference.

Element	Follows the language setting
Menus, buttons, settings screens	Yes
Slash command and block names	Yes
Page titles and body content	No
Database property names	No
Text inside imported templates	No

There is a second order effect that catches people writing documentation. A screenshot taken in Japanese shows Japanese menu labels, and a colleague reading it in English sees different words on their own screen. Internal guides that name a menu item are therefore only correct for readers running the same language, which is an argument for describing the location of a control rather than quoting its label, or for stating the language the screenshots were taken in.

Search behaves the same way. Searching for a block by its Japanese name finds it while the interface is Japanese and does not while it is English, because the slash command menu is part of the interface. Anyone who learned the shortcuts in one language and then switched has to relearn that particular habit, which is a real cost of flipping the setting casually.

The practical implication is for teams. Setting Japanese across a workspace makes the interface consistent and leaves the content exactly as mixed as it was. Consistency in content is a writing convention, not a setting, and it has to be agreed rather than configured.

When the interface stays in English, three things get tried

The order in which people attempt a fix is fairly consistent, and only the last of the three does anything.

The first attempt is reinstalling. It is the reflex for anything that looks like a broken install, and it costs a download plus a sign in. It cannot work, because the language is a property of the account and the account is restored on the next sign in exactly as it was. The right to left behaviour is the clearest proof of this. A preference that can reverse the layout of the whole application on desktop and mobile is plainly stored somewhere other than the installer.

The second attempt is changing the display language of the operating system. On Windows that means the language settings in the system, and on macOS the preferred languages list. This has a real effect, but only in one place. Notion documents that the mobile app follows the language ranking in system preferences, so a phone responds to it. The desktop app reads the account setting instead and ignores the change entirely.

The third attempt is the one that works: Settings in the sidebar, then Preferences, then the dropdown next to Language under Language and time. It applies immediately and it applies everywhere the account is signed in.

Ordering the attempts the other way round saves an hour on a slow connection. Check the dropdown first, and only then look at whether the machine even meets the documented requirement, since a machine below macOS 12 or below Windows 10 version 21H2 will have a different problem entirely and no language setting will present itself.

Japanese outside the interface

The language setting covers the application, and Notion publishes Japanese material around it that is worth knowing about separately, because it does not switch with the dropdown.

The help centre exists in Japanese at its own set of addresses, with the language selectable from the page rather than from the app. That means it can be read in Japanese while the application itself is running in English, which is useful when following an English tutorial that references English menu names. The reverse is equally possible, and it removes the main reason people flip the app language back and forth while learning.

The October 2021 announcement that introduced Japanese also pointed at Japanese templates, translated guides, and Japanese language customer support reachable through the help system. Those are separate from the interface setting. Templates are content, so a Japanese template stays Japanese for a reader whose interface is in English, which is consistent with the rule that content never follows the setting.

Notion's own site carries a language switcher at the bottom of the page listing the same set of languages, including Japanese, Korean, simplified and traditional Chinese, Thai, Indonesian, Hebrew and Arabic. The practical use of that switcher is checking terminology. When a Japanese speaking colleague describes a menu item and the wording does not match, opening the corresponding help page in Japanese resolves which label is being talked about faster than changing the application language and changing it back.

The Windows and Mac split, and what carries across

Because the language belongs to the account, a person using Windows at the office and a Mac at home gets the same interface language in both places without configuring anything twice. That is convenient, and it is also the part that surprises people. Switching to English on one machine to follow an English tutorial switches the other machine as well, at the next sync.

The workaround is not a second setting. It is a second account, or a browser window signed in separately, which is where a container based approach starts to matter. Two Notion windows, each holding its own session, can sit in the Dock at once, one on a personal account and one on a work account, without either of them touching the other's preferences.

Teams hit a related version of this. A shared workspace does not have a language, so an administrator cannot set one for everyone. Each member sets it on their own account, which means a workspace can be viewed in Japanese by one person and in English by another at the same moment, from the same page. That is usually the desired behaviour, and it is worth knowing before someone goes looking for a workspace level control that does not exist.

What does not carry across is the requirement. A Windows machine on Windows 10 21H2 and a Mac on macOS 11 are in different positions, since only the first meets the documented floor. On the Mac that falls short, the workspace still opens in a browser, and the language setting applies there exactly as it does in the installed app, because it lives in the account rather than in the software.

When the browser route is the better answer

Three cases come up, and none of them is about language.

The first is a Mac below macOS 12. The installer is out of reach, the browser is not, and a window built from the site restores the Dock icon and the application switcher entry the installed app would have provided. A list of services already prepared for that treatment is on the Supported services page.

The second is a managed machine where installing software requires a request that will take a week. A browser window needs no installation privileges, and the workspace is available the same afternoon.

The third is running two accounts side by side. The installed desktop app is one application on the machine, and switching accounts inside it is a switching action rather than a clicking action. Separate windows with separate sessions turn it into a click. The steps for building one are on the Guide.

What to change first

Open Settings, then Preferences, and set the language under Language and time, because that single setting covers every device the account signs in to. If a machine cannot meet macOS 12 or Windows 10 21H2, or two accounts have to stay open at once, build the workspace as its own window with Kagemusha, which ships more than 300 ready made presets.