Variation gallery images now handled by WooCommerce core (WC 11.1) – Additional Variation Images plugin retired

Variation gallery images no longer come from a paid add-on. As of WooCommerce 11.1 the feature is built into WooCommerce core, and the standalone Additional Variation Images extension has been retired by Woo. Ticket #130959.

What changed on this site (2026-09-04):

• WooCommerce was updated to 11.1.0 (WordPress 7.1).
• The paid plugin woocommerce-additional-variation-images (v2.3.3) auto-deactivated itself — this is by design, not a failure. Its job now belongs to core.
• Core ran its own one-time migration of the existing galleries. It finished at 2026-09-04 11:03 UTC (recorded in the option wc_variation_gallery_migration_completed_at).
• 7 variations carried gallery images. All 7 migrated cleanly from the old meta key _wc_additional_variation_images to core’s native _product_image_gallery, and each is flagged _wc_variation_gallery_legacy_fallback_disabled = yes so core — not the legacy fallback — is now the source of truth. No images were lost and there are no related PHP errors in the log.

Where to manage variation galleries now:

Products → (edit a variable product) → Variations tab → expand a variation. The gallery control sits directly beneath that variation’s main image — the same place the old plugin put it. Look for “Add variation images” on an empty variation, or “Manage variation gallery” / “Update gallery” where images already exist. Drag to reorder; the first image is the Primary.

There is no separate settings screen and no feature toggle to switch on — it is always available in WooCommerce 11.1+. For reference, core renders the field on the woocommerce_variation_after_upload_image hook and saves it on woocommerce_admin_process_variation_object, in:

wp-content/plugins/woocommerce/src/Internal/VariationGallery/ClassicVariationGalleryAdmin.php

Do not reactivate or reinstall the old extension. It is no longer sold or supported, and running it alongside core’s version invites duplicate galleries. The deactivated plugin folder is still present at wp-content/plugins/woocommerce-additional-variation-images and can be deleted; core keeps a read-compatibility layer (LegacyVariationGalleryCompatibility) for any variation it has not yet touched, so removing the folder does not affect the front end.

Billing: the extension subscription will not renew — Woo confirmed this in its 2026-08-24 retirement notice. Removal of the line item from the Running Robots recurring invoice was approved on 2026-09-03 and is being handled by billing.

Documented by Alex Bybur (Running Robots support) — 2026-09-04. Verified over SSH: WC version, plugin state, migration flag, and per-variation meta counts.