[Closed] Woocommerce, product translations doesnt show images in meta boxes

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out to WPML Support.

I’m Prosenjit from the WPML Development Team, and I’ll be happy to clarify this for you.

I completely understand your concern. While we generally recommend managing translations through the WPML Translation Editor (instead of manually editing translated products), your question is totally valid, and the behavior you’re seeing can definitely look confusing at first.

The good news is: this is expected and intentional by design, not a bug.

Here’s how it works behind the scenes:

On the frontend, WooCommerce Multilingual makes sure the correct product images are displayed by dynamically resolving them from the original product. This is handled through WPML/WCML filters, so the frontend does not depend on the translated product having the image IDs stored directly in its own metadata.

In the admin editor, WordPress displays images based on the translated product’s raw meta values. Since WCML manages product images as synchronized data coming from the original product, the translated product may not always contain the same attachment IDs directly in its meta, which is why the gallery may appear empty in the backend editor.

In short, product images are treated as shared/synchronized content managed from the original product. WCML handles this through its sync system and frontend logic, rather than duplicating and maintaining matching raw image metadata in every translation.

That’s also why the recommended workflow (as shown in WCML’s admin notice, screenshot attached) is to manage the images on the "original product", and let WCML automatically handle them for the translations.

I hope I was able to clarify things for you.

That said, please note that our team is working on improving the logic/filter responsible for handling image synchronization in WooCommerce Multilingual. Hopefully, in the next few WCML updates, you’ll notice a clear improvement in this area.

If you have any further questions or need additional assistance, feel free to let me know, I’ll be happy to help.

Best regards,
Prosenjit