How to Export and Import Product Attributes in WooCommerce

As a WooCommerce store grows, managing each product’s attributes through the native interface can become increasingly overwhelming. A single update to a catalog, such as adding a new color option or correcting a spelling error in an attribute name, will require touching hundreds of products one by one until the update is complete.

WP All Import and WP All Export eliminate manual effort by treating WooCommerce product attributes as structured, mappable data. This makes it easy to export them to a spreadsheet for review or bulk editing, and to import the changes back into WooCommerce without hassle.

This article goes over the basic workflow for importing and exporting WooCommerce product attributes, along with other attribute-specific options that come into play as a store catalog grows.

What WooCommerce Product Attributes Are

WooCommerce product attributes are useful for defining additional characteristics of a product, giving shoppers more options as they shop. They can be either custom or global: custom attributes are created on a per-product basis, while global attributes are defined as a shared taxonomy that can be used by any product in the store.

This distinction matters for importing and exporting WooCommerce products since global attributes carry term relationships that custom attributes don’t. 

Attributes also serve as the building blocks for creating variable products, which is a use case we have covered separately in How to Import and Export WooCommerce Variable Products.

How to Export WooCommerce Product Attributes

Exporting WooCommerce Product Attributes: The Basic Steps

Exporting WooCommerce product attributes with WP All Export happens in five easy steps:

1. Start the export. Create a new WooCommerce Products export.

2. Choose the columns to export. On the Drag and Drop column selection screen, remove every default field included except ID, Title, SKU, and Product Type.
3. Add the attribute data. Drag the All field from Available Data → Product Data → Attributes and drop it into the column selection area.

4. Choose export file type. Select whether you want the data to be exported in the CSV, Excel, Google Sheets, or XML file format.
5. Run the export. The resulting file contains every attribute name and value for every product, organized by type.

Adding the Product Type field to the export file is important because attribute data behaves differently depending on the product type. Simple products have one distinct value per attribute, per product. Variable products, on the other hand, share identical titles across variations, and only attributes that are actually used to generate those variations will have populated values. With the Product Type column included in the export file, reading the attribute data becomes much easier.

Advanced WooCommerce Attribute Export Options

Beyond the basic export loop covered in the previous section, WP All Export handles other more advanced WooCommerce product attributes export scenarios that come up in more complex catalogs. Some of these include:

Filtering Exports by Attribute Value

Certain scenarios may require an attribute export in which exported products are filtered to include only products matching a specific attribute value, e.g., exporting only products where the Color attribute equals "Red." This uses the same filtering logic as any other export column. See How to Filter WordPress Export Data.

Exporting Attributes Tied to Variations

Attributes used to generate product variations are exported differently than standalone attributes, since variation data includes SKUs, prices, and stock levels tied to each attribute combination. How to Import and Export WooCommerce Variable Products covers this export in full.

Exporting Attribute Data for Bulk Editing

When you need to make changes to values of attributes or add new attributes to products in your catalog, WP All Export allows you to export attributes to a spreadsheet, edit them in bulk, and then reimport to update the catalog in one pass. See How to Bulk Edit WooCommerce Products

How to Import WooCommerce Product Attributes

Importing WooCommerce Product Attributes: The Basic Steps

The process of importing WooCommerce product attributes with WP All Import is the same as with any other WooCommerce product import, with one tab dedicated to mapping attributes.

1. Start the import. Create a new WooCommerce Products import.
2. Map each attribute. On the Drag and Drop screen, open the Attributes tab in the WooCommerce Add-On panel and map the attribute Name and Values. Use Add Attributes to create as many attributes as needed.

3. Match existing attribute names exactly. This is important because an attribute name that does not match an existing one exactly will not update that attribute. Rather, it creates an entirely new one.
4. Run the import. The attributes for the WooCommerce products will be added or updated accordingly.

Advanced WooCommerce Attribute Import Options

When importing WooCommerce product attributes, there are four Advanced options to note. These govern how the attribute behaves once it is imported.

Option	Default	What It Controls
In Variations / Not in Variations	In Variations	Whether the attribute can drive product variations
Is Taxonomy / Not Taxonomy	Is Taxonomy	Whether the attribute imports as a global (shared) or custom (product-specific) attribute
Is Visible / Not Visible	Is Visible	Whether the attribute displays on the product page
Auto-Create Terms / Do Not Create Terms	Auto-Create Terms	Whether new attribute terms get created automatically, or only matched against existing ones

It is also possible to set each option dynamically per record using Set with XPath, which accepts yes or no values. This is useful for when the behavior of an attribute needs to vary row by row within a single import file.

Advanced WooCommerce Attribute Import Scenarios 

The scenarios outlined below extend the basic import loop for more demanding WooCommerce product catalogs.

Importing Variation-Linked Attributes

An attribute that's only there for display is a different import than one generating variations. The moment an attribute drives variations, SKUs, prices, and stock levels get tied to each attribute combination, and the import has to account for all of it at once. How to Import and Export WooCommerce Variable Products covers that full setup.

Bulk-Updating Existing Product Attributes

When you need to update attribute values already assigned to products in your catalog, WP All Import lets you export the current attribute data, make the changes in a spreadsheet, and run it back through the same import configuration. See the FAQ section below for the full steps.

Scheduling Attribute Imports 

If you run a WooCommerce store that pulls product attribute data from a supplier feed or an external inventory system, the last thing you want to have to do is babysit that connection. WP All Import can run attribute imports on a set schedule, so new values land in the store without anyone triggering the import by hand. See How Do I Automatically Import Products into WooCommerce?

Final Thoughts

With WP All Export and WP All Import, a WooCommerce product attribute export and import process takes only a few steps from start to finish, using the same Drag & Drop interface as for any other WooCommerce data. That simplicity holds true no matter how specific the requirements get because the more advanced use cases only extend the same workflow; they don’t replace it. WP All Import and WP All Export were designed to treat basic and advanced attribute handling as a single, continuous system, making it seamless for users to manage their catalogs as their store grows.

Export and Import Product Attributes in WooCommerce - Frequently Asked Questions