Quickly Import Multiples Images Using the Imagefield_Import Module

Thanks to Bob at Mustardseed Media for tweeting about this module. It's undoubtedly saved me hours of work today alone!

I've recently started a personal project converting a website to Drupal. It's currently a static HTML/CSS site which also uses the Coppermine Photo Gallery. As part of building the new website, I wanted to move all the photos from the existing site onto the new one. However, with 1260 photos in 17 albums, this could have been a lengthy process!

I created a new Drupal-powered Gallery as described in this screencast by Jeff Eaton - using the CCK and Imagefield modules, and re-created each of my existing Gallery nodes. Using the Imagefield_Import module, I was then able to quickly import the photos into the new Galleries.

I downloaded all the photos from the previous Gallery via FTP, and installed and configured the Imagefield_Import module.

I created an 'Import' folder, selected the target field and mode. In this case, I want each image to be imported into its own Photo node. I moved the photos for the first album into the Import folder, and loaded the 'Import Images' screen (admin/content/imagefield_import).

After clicking 'Import', a node is created for each photo, the image is uploaded, and added to the selected Gallery.

Just another 1248 photos to go...