External Images for WooCommerce

Manage and Display External Images on Your WooCommerce Store

Stop wasting time uploading images. External Images lets you display product pictures from external sources—like a remote server you manage or a CDN. It saves space, speeds up your site, and keeps things easy to manage.

Key Benefits:

• Faster Store, Happier Customers – Serve images from external sources, reducing server load and improving page speed.
• Lower Hosting Costs – Avoid storing thousands of product images locally and cut down on expensive hosting upgrades.
• Automated Product Image Imports – Bulk import entire product catalogs with images from CSV, JSON, or XML feeds in minutes.
• Simplified Workflow – Use external images for featured images, galleries, and product variations just like you would with local images.

How it works

External Images lets you display product images from other websites or image links. You don’t upload the images to your own site—they stay stored somewhere else, like a server or CDN. The plugin just displays them on your store automatically, so your site stays fast, and your media library stays clean.

When Adding Products Manually

You can import images using a direct URL or perform a bulk image import from a JSON or XML file. This process creates virtual attachments in your WordPress Media Library, which you can then use when creating or editing WooCommerce products one by one via the WooCommerce admin, just like any other image.

Using the WooCommerce CSV Importer

1. Add single or multiple image URLs to the “Images” column in your CSV file.
2. Map the column to External Images during import.
3. Run the importer, your products will appear with images directly from external URLs

What You’ll Need

To enable external images during a CSV import, you will need the following plugins:

1. WooCommerce
2. External Images