Easiest Way To Transfer Products Between Categories In Magento

Moving products between categories in Magento seems to be a hectic job. Imagine that your employee gives you a days’ estimate to move products to a new category. Imagine you have launched a sale, you want to move your current products to the new sale category and you are running out of time.

But, don’t you worry! You are at the right place. Moving products to a different category is a tough routine. But with a simple trick, this task can be done easily.

Let’s start moving it!

Select “products” in entry type CSV in Export File Format.

Click on ‘Continue’ to export the entire catalog.

The CSV file will be downloaded.

Now open the CSV file, don’t be scared of the cluttered data. We can make it readable. Select All cells in excel (Ctrl+A). From Quick access toolbar, select Format and click on ‘Auto fill column width’. You can see that the data is readable now.

We will apply a filter to the data so that we can get the products of required category. Let’s assume that you need to transfer products from Gadgets category to Sale Category. For this, go to data and select filters. Open the filters in your category column and select your desired category which you need to transfer. You will see that your products are now filtered and only the selected category is visible. Now copy all the rows and paste them to another excel workbook to avoid any errors in the file.

We only need the SKU and _category column. We need to get rid of all other columns. Delete all other columns in your new excel workbook and check the rows for any empty values. Delete the entire rows which contain any empty values. This will refine your products and _category data.

In the _category column, change all the values to sale. Save the new file on your desktop as CSV (if you are on mac save as windows CSV file).

Now, open the Magento admin panel and navigate to System->import/export and select import. Select the entry type as “Products” and import behavior as “Replace Existing Complex Data”.

Upload your CSV file and click on check data. Magento will check the data and give the feedback about the validity of the file. If the file is validated, you will see the import button. Click to import the CSV file.

Now, you can see that the products from Gadget category are transferred to Sale category. Cross check the categories in the ‘Manage Category‘ section. Your new category is filled with the products from the previous category.

In order to show the impact on the store, reindex and clear the cache so that the impact will be visible to the front end of your store.

Now, get started with the new category and strategize your new workflows in accordance to that. If you have any questions, feel free to comment in the comments section below.