2016-07-04: Updated for MagMI 0.7.23

If you’re the quick thinking type and just need an example of a MagMI CSV file to get started, click the link!

Introduction

MagMI stands for “Magento Mass Importer”, it lets you import products stored in CSV files. Even if your store only has 20 products, it’s still a good idea to use MagMI. You can apply changes easily and fast with MagMI to all your products.

Using the import and export features of Magento works but it’s very slow when you have just hundreds of products.

Installation

First, download and install LibreOffice, you will use LibreOffice Spreadsheet to add your products, one per row, export it to CSV and use this file in MagMI to import all of your products. Don’t use Microsoft Office because it adds extra information in a CSV file and it will not work with MagMI.

Download MagMI and also download the latest extra plugins. Extract MagMI and extract the extra plugins in magmi/plugins/extra. This extra plugin lets you import products with images, tier pricing, custom options and much more. Then upload everything to your website.

Rename the magmi folder to something else, a unique secret name that only. MagMI has become so popular that hackers have found a way in. By having not the default “magmi” name, it will be harder for hackers to find their way in.

If your website has a .htaccess with authentication, it will be in conflict with MagMI. To solve this issue, add a new .htaccess in your MagMI folder with “Satisfy any”, this will remove the authentication but since new installation of MagMI already has an authentication system, it will still be secure.

The default username/password for MagMI is “magmi” for both. If it doesn’t work, use your Magento administrator account. If it’s still not working, you might need to create another .htaccess.

Go to www.yourwebsite.com/magmi/web/magmi.php, and in the “Configure Global Parameters” section, configure it by adding your database options like the host, name, user, password, port and click on Save Global Parameters at the bottom-right of this section.

In the section “Configure Current Profile”, set the “CSV Separator” and the “CVS Enclosure” like the one you’re going to use in your LibreOffice Spreadsheet. I like to use the comma (,) and the quote (“) respectively.

Now need to check some useful plugins. They are all used for something specific. A good start is to check:

• Image attributes processor v1.0.33a
• Custom Options v0.0.7a
• Tier price importer v0.0.9a
• Configurable Item processor v1.3.7a

It’s actually better to start with as less plugins as possible and work your way up. When there’s a configure option, make sure to inspect it carefully.

Then in your CSV file, add the information you need and

• Click on File / Save As
• Name it import.csv
• Click Edit filter settings
• Field delimited and Text delimiter should, by default, show the comma then the quote
• Check Quote all text cells
• Click OK

Upload it to your website as /var/import/import.csv and in MagMI, at the top, click on “Run import” and see the magic happens!

Modifying the CSV file

Now that everything is set up and you know how to use MagMI, let’s move on to the interesting stuff, what column exactly do you need in the LibreOffice Spreadsheet file to import your products? Here’s a short list of some of them. Most options are self-explanatory in my CSV example file.

websites

value of “base”, this will target your main website of Magento. If you have more than one website, you need to put the code of the other website in the column.

store

value of “admin”, this will target the default language of your store. If you have a multi-lingual website, change admin to another language code. You can find it in the Magento Dashboard in System / Manage Stores and by clicking on the Store View Name. You do need to import a product with “admin” first, then later in your spreadsheet you can use another value for the “store” column to translate your product.

type

value of “simple”, this is for simple products, if you have a Group, Bundle, Virtual, you’ll need to change this.

sku

Choose a unique value for your products.

attribute_set

A name for your product

name

A name for your product (again)

image, small_image, thumbnail

For images, you need to upload them on your website before running MagMI, by default they should be in media/import. Then just add in your CSV file “/your-image.jpg”.

category_ids

Place the product in this category. The value in it will be numbers separated by a comma like so: “2,4,104”, each number represent the ID of the category. You can find the ID in Catalog / Manage Categories in the Magento Dashboard, look for the text Products (ID: 55).Tier Pricing

A bit more complicated is Tier Pricing, the column header will be named “tier_price:_all_” and a value of “10:10.50;20:9.50” means that a quantity of over 10, the price will be 10.50$ and a quantity of over 20, the price will be 9.50$.

Custom options

Again, a bit more complicated, it’s the custom options. You’ll need a header column named “Type:radio:1”, this will create radio buttons, and a value of

means that there will be 2 radio buttons, one with the name Small, a fixed price of +1$ with an SKU modifier of _small and a sort order of 0. The other one is named Large, with a percent price of +20%, an SKU modifier of _large and a sort order of 1.

Other possible values instead of “radio” are

• field
• area
• file
• drop_down
• checkbox
• multiple
• date
• date_time
• time

Conclusion

If you want a new value that is not in the CSV example file and you don’t know how to name the column header. Install Firebug with Firefox. Go in Catalog / Manage products, choose your products and find the value you want to add in your CSV file. Right-clicking on the text and choosing Inspect Element in Firebug. Look for the “<label for=”?”>” code. The “for” value will be your column header.

There’s quite a lot more to know about MagMI but once you find how to name your column and in what kind of format to put the information, you can the add and modify thousands of products easily and quick. Always backup and keep your CSV file safe as you will need them when you want to update your products.

Links

LibreOffice

MagMI

MagMI plugins

CSV example file