<?php
 
	define('MAGENTO', realpath(dirname(__FILE__)));
	require_once MAGENTO . '/app/Mage.php';
 
	umask(0);
	Mage::app()->setCurrentStore(Mage_Core_Model_App::ADMIN_STORE_ID);
        $count = 0;
 
	$file = fopen('./var/import/importCats.csv', 'r');
	while (($line = fgetcsv($file)) !== FALSE) { $count++;
	  //$line is an array of the csv elements
 
	  if (!empty($line[0]) && !empty($line[1])) { 
 
		  $data['general']['path'] = $line[0];
		  $data['general']['name'] = $line[1];
		  $data['general']['meta_title'] = "";
		  $data['general']['meta_description'] = "";
		  $data['general']['is_active'] = "";
		  $data['general']['url_key'] = "";
		  $data['general']['display_mode'] = "PRODUCTS";
		  $data['general']['is_anchor'] = 0;
 
		  $data['category']['parent'] = $line[0]; // 3 top level
		  $storeId = 0;
 
		  createCategory($data,$storeId);
		  sleep(0.5);
		  unset($data);
		}
 
	}  
 
 
  function createCategory($data,$storeId) {
 
  	echo "Starting {$data['general']['name']} [{$data['category']['parent']}] ...";
 
      $category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category');
      $category->setStoreId($storeId);
 
      # Fix must be applied to run script
      #http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/appserv/main.php/viewreply/157328/
  	
		  if (is_array($data)) {
		      $category->addData($data['general']);
 
		      if (!$category->getId()) {
 
		          $parentId = $data['category']['parent'];
		          if (!$parentId) {
		              if ($storeId) {
		                  $parentId = Mage::app()->getStore($storeId)->getRootCategoryId();
		              }
		              else {
		                  $parentId = Mage_Catalog_Model_Category::TREE_ROOT_ID;
		              }
		          }
		          $parentCategory = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($parentId);
		          $category->setPath($parentCategory->getPath());
 
		      }
 
					/**
					 * Check "Use Default Value" checkboxes values
					 */
					if ($useDefaults = $data['use_default']) {
					    foreach ($useDefaults as $attributeCode) {
					        $category->setData($attributeCode, null);
					    }
					}		      
 
		      $category->setAttributeSetId($category->getDefaultAttributeSetId());
 
		      if (isset($data['category_products']) &&
		          !$category->getProductsReadonly()) {
		          $products = array();
		          parse_str($data['category_products'], $products);
		          $category->setPostedProducts($products);
		      }
 
		      try {
		          $category->save();
		          echo "Suceeded <br /> ";
		      }
		      catch (Exception $e){
		      		echo "Failed <br />";
 
		      }
		  }  	
 
  }
?>

http://www.sonassi.com/knowledge-base/quick-script-batch-create-magento-categories/

First off, create your CSV with 2 columns, the parent ID for the category and the category name – you could easily add more columns for extra options, but it wasn’t necessary for us.

The CSV file should be something like this:

3,subcat
4,subcat2
6,subcat3

Then it should be saved in ./var/import/importCats.csv

Then save the following in ./quickCatCreate.php

Batch create categories

magento

PHP