Add Product Images via CSV in Magento

Add Product Images via CSV

This is something that most developers will be perfectly aware of, but I’m going to document it here for the benefit of those who are not aware. Importing products via spreadsheet saves a hell of a lot of time, but doing the images was always a slight grey area. Here are the steps to doing this which I can confirm works with Magento 1.5.0.1.

Step 1 – Check Directory Permissions

In order for this to work, check your folder permissions are set to 777 on the following directories:

/media
/media/import
/var/import

The reason is because the script requires all of these folder to be writeable to execute properly.

Step 2 – Upload Images

Through FTP upload all of your images to the media/import folder. I have seen people say that in some versions of Magento 1.5 the import folder should be different: (media/catalog/product and media/catalog/product/import), however I have tested it in the media/import folder on 1.5.0.1 and it works perfectly.

Step 3 – Link to Images in CSV

In your product spreadsheet you now need to link to the image filename in the columns image, small_image and thumbnail. All image names must be preceded with a forward slash “/”. For example, I am uploading an image for the 1989 Tim Burton classic ‘Batman’ starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. I would enter the image name as shown below:

I’ve also seen people report that they’ve had to add a suffix to the small image and thumbnails (such as /imagename_small.jpg), but in my experience this is unnecessary. Simply adding the images names as I have demonstrated above works just fine.

Step 4 – Import using Dataflow Profiles

Now you can import your CSV as usual using Magento Dataflow profiles. Upon doing this your product should be ‘image-ready’ when you view it on the frontend:

Uploading Additional Gallery Images

As far as I’m aware there isn’t currently a default method for bulk uploading additional gallery images. I’m certain that Magento will introduce this feature in the near future as it seems relatively easy to implement. In the meantime, Prattski’s blog has a nice extension for it: http://prattski.com/2009/10/09/magento-import-multiple-images-for-products-module/