diff --git a/cmake/build-pofiles.cmake b/cmake/build-pofiles.cmake
--- a/cmake/build-pofiles.cmake
+++ b/cmake/build-pofiles.cmake
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@
 
 file(GLOB_RECURSE pofiles RELATIVE "${PO_DIR}" "${PO_DIR}/**.po")
 
+set(commands)
 foreach(pofile IN LISTS pofiles)
     get_filename_component(name ${pofile} NAME)
     # Regex the basename, cmake only allows stripping the longest extension, we
@@ -37,12 +38,15 @@
     set(dest ${COPY_TO}/${langdir}/LC_MESSAGES)
     file(MAKE_DIRECTORY ${dest})
 
-    message(STATUS "building... ${pofile} to ${name}.mo" )
+    list(APPEND commands COMMAND ${GETTEXT_MSGFMT_EXECUTABLE} -o ${dest}/${name}.mo ${PO_DIR}/${pofile})
+endforeach()
+
+if(commands)
     execute_process(
-        COMMAND ${GETTEXT_MSGFMT_EXECUTABLE} -o ${dest}/${name}.mo ${PO_DIR}/${pofile}
+        ${commands}
         RESULT_VARIABLE code
     )
     if(code)
-        message(FATAL_ERROR "failed at generating ${name}.mo")
+        message(FATAL_ERROR "failed generating ${PO_DIR}")
     endif()
-endforeach()
+endif()