Media translation with WP All Import

This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.

Problem:
You have a multilingual website and are using WP All Import to manage WooCommerce products in multiple languages. You've successfully imported images for products in the default language (German) but face issues when trying to assign these images, with their respective metadata, to the products in the second language (English). The metadata for the German images gets overwritten by the English texts during the import process.

Solution:
First, ensure that your CSV files include a column with the product title, as missing titles can cause the WP All Import Pro plugin to skip product imports. When setting up your import, in the WPML > Settings, check the option to duplicate images if your workflow requires it. For the English import, this setting will import the images and English texts and assign them to the English products. These settings will also duplicate the media to the Spanish products but with English texts. Subsequently, perform a second import for the Spanish version using the option "Use images currently in the Media Library" to update the existing Spanish media with the correct texts. Ensure that the WPML language options are set to connect this Spanish import to the original English import.

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Tagged: Exception

This topic contains 7 replies, has 1 voice.

Last updated by Nigel 9 months, 1 week ago.

Assisted by: Osama Mersal.

Author	Posts
March 26, 2025 at 12:48 am #16860208
Osama Mersal WPML Supporter since 02/2020 Languages: English (English ) Arabic (العربية ) Timezone: Africa/Cairo (GMT+02:00)	Hi, Our 2nd tier tried some workarounds, but they didn't fix the issue, so the issue has been escalated to our Dev team. Best regards, Osama
April 2, 2025 at 4:14 pm #16888065
Nigel WPML Supporter since 02/2016 Timezone: Europe/Madrid (GMT+01:00)	Hi there Osama is off this week, so let me step in here to say that our colleagues in the compatibility team were able to successfully import images and associated texts and attach them to products, without the need for any development work. Typically products and images are imported together, and it proved a little challenging to confirm the specific workflow required for your use-case. I have gone through the steps myself to confirm they work on a sandbox site which you can access to confirm the results and see the settings of the imports. You can log in with this link: hidden link Note this test site is in English and Spanish, and has two products (both translated) which initially had no product image associated, but which after separate English and Spanish imports now have images assigned where the image texts come from the CSV files used for the imports. Note that the CSV files have a column with the product title. In the original test case shared by Osama the CSV files did not include the product title, but the WP All Import Pro plugin tends to skip product imports if there are no title, content, or excerpt. Otherwise the setup is comparable to that originally described. It was open to discussion depending on the import method whether in WPML > Settings the media settings to duplicate images should be checked: in this case, they should. The English import will import the images (and English texts) and assign them to the English products; those WPML settings will duplicate the media to the Spanish products, but they will have English texts. The second, Spanish, import will update those existing Spanish media to replace the texts. For that to work, note—when inspecting the existing imports—that for the second Spanish import, for the source of the images the option to "Use images currently in the Media Library" should be used. Also note the WPML language options are set to connect this Spanish import to the original English import. I hope this test site illustrates what is required so you can get this working on your own site. Thanks for your patience while this was investigated.