Bulk upload of products in Magento including images

If you’ve ever used the import products utility in Magento, you may have discovered that it is difficult to get the images to import with the products correctly.

Here is a summary of how you need to do your csv file for correct import and upload.

To make things easy, select your store in the Magento admin, go to a category in that store and create a sample product, including adding an image. Once complete, go to “System>Import/Export>Profiles” and select “Export All Products”. Select the store where you just created your sample product. Click the “Save and Continue Editing” button, then go to “Run Profile”.

Once completed, ftp to your server and navigate to var/export and retrieve your file to your desktop. Open the csv file in your spreadsheet program and now you have a model to work with.

Populate all fields of your spreadsheet with your product information. IMPORTANT: For your image files, put the name in the fields making sure you put a forward slash (/) in front of the image name.

Once complete, you will need to do one more thing before import and this is critical. Upload all of your images to the media/import directory on your server.

Now, when you do your import through the Magento admin, the import script will include your image in the upload. It sounds crazy, but this is the only way to accomplish a successful upload including images in Magento.