Translation of German "Es wird nichts so heiß gegessen, wie es gekocht wird"
In the English subtitles for the 2009 movie "Das Weisse Band, "his bark is worse than his bite" is used.
It's one of my favourite German sayings (German native speaker), and I also haven't been able to find a good translation for this proverb.
As for the meaning, it's sort of an amalgamation of: "Don't put the cart before the horse" and "Things are never as bad as they seem".