diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index 23e1f7776..2a6ff1d88 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ before_script:
 
 test:
   script:
-    - ./app/tools/check-string-format.py
+    - ./tools/check-format-strings.py
     - ./gradlew assemble -PdisablePreDex
     # always report on lint errors to the build log
     - sed -i -e 's,textReport .*,textReport true,' app/build.gradle
diff --git a/app/tools/check-string-format.py b/tools/check-format-strings.py
similarity index 100%
rename from app/tools/check-string-format.py
rename to tools/check-format-strings.py
diff --git a/app/tools/remove-unused-trans.py b/tools/remove-unused-and-blank-translations.py
similarity index 65%
rename from app/tools/remove-unused-trans.py
rename to tools/remove-unused-and-blank-translations.py
index 7863c2774..d623d7f56 100755
--- a/app/tools/remove-unused-trans.py
+++ b/tools/remove-unused-and-blank-translations.py
@@ -1,19 +1,23 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env python3
 
-# Remove extra translations
+# This script removes strings from the translated files that are not useful:
+#  * translations for strings that are no longer used
+#  * empty translated strings, English is better than no text at all
 
 import glob
 import os
 import re
 from xml.etree import ElementTree
 
+resdir = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), '..', 'app', 'src', 'main', 'res')
+
 strings = set()
 
-for e in ElementTree.parse(os.path.join('src', 'main', 'res', 'values', 'strings.xml')).getroot().findall('.//string'):
+for e in ElementTree.parse(os.path.join(resdir, 'values', 'strings.xml')).getroot().findall('.//string'):
     name = e.attrib['name']
     strings.add(name)
 
-for d in glob.glob(os.path.join('src', 'main', 'res', 'values-*')):
+for d in glob.glob(os.path.join(resdir, 'values-*')):
 
     str_path = os.path.join(d, 'strings.xml')
     if os.path.exists(str_path):