Is it possible to export/import product categories in Magento?

Question

I saw one other question on how to do a mass import of products, categories, and all that, but all I want to be able to do is import my categories from one store to another.

When you export products I see that there is still a category ID attribute that it gives the products, but I don't see any options for exporting product categories.

I assume the simplest way would be to just copy over the tables with SQL, but when I export/import through phpMyAdmin it never works....

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Chris

Answer 1

Unfortunately, there isn't an easy way to import/export categories. I'm shocked that the functionality still doesn't exist for that (and for dropdown/multiselect attributes).

If you are versed enough with using APIs and something like SOAP, you can certainly interact with Magento's API and quickly add categories from a CSV or something like that. But, you do have to develop it yourself. That is pretty much your only option at this point though..

http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/doc/webservices-api/api#category_api

Answer 2

So I actually got my categories imported!

I ended up exporting each table that had anything to do with my categories from my old site through phpMyAdmin. Then I copied the INSERT statements from each SQL file individually and ran them on my new database.

There were a couple that required importing some other tables first, but if you get an error it will tell you which table it is calling on and then just import that first.

The only non-category table that I had to bring over was the product_entity table I believe. I forget the exact name, but when you try to import your other category tables it will let you know what it needs.

Not the easiest way to do it, but much faster than importing by hand, and relative simple to execute. Just takes a little time.

FYI, I imported my products through the admin panel after I got all of my categories in place.

Hope that helps someone else who is running into the same problem. Not sure how clear that answer was, but if you have any questions or need clarification just leave a comment and I will be happy to try and help you out.

Answer 3

Hi,

You can make mass import/export of products, categories from one store to another with Store Manager for Magento. You can import/export thousands of products and products categories in a few minutes. Check how it works on: http://www.mag-manager.com/import-products