Manual: XML Index Files – Batch Processing

Version 2.0 Updated: 12th of June,.2026

What Are Index Files?

When you work with Icecat, every product in our database has its own detailed product data sheet. But with millions of products available, how do you find the right one? That’s exactly what index files are for.

Think of an index file as a master lookup list — it maps every product to its Icecat product data sheet using prinary pieces of information you already know: the GTIN, the Category, the Brand ID and the Product Code. Instead of searching for products one by one, you (or your technical team) can download this list and use it to quickly locate and retrieve the product data you need.

Types of Index Files

Index Files are updated overnight and share the structure.

We recommend downloading only the XML files that you need for your shop or application. It is useless to import all the global product data files if you only operate in one geographic area or have an assortment limited to a certain category.

Daily Index

Icecat creates a daily.index.xml file every day to keep channel partners informed about products that were updated in the past 24 hours.

Also, the daily.index.xml file includes the list of product codes that are removed the day before (Quality=REMOVED). We remove product data-sheets, for example, when editors map them away. You can use it for cleansing your catalog.

On Market Index

Use the on_market.index.xml file in case you think the files.index.xml is too big for you to process.

The product is considered On Market if Icecat partner distributor includes the product in their catalog on certain market. Therefore, on_market.index.xml includes only the products that we can guarantee are distributed in certain country.

Disclaimer: If our monitor for your market is incomplete, the on_market.index.xml is probably too incomplete for your purposes.

Nobody Index

In case you want to recategorize your products for which we have no data-sheet (Quality=NOEDITOR), make use of the nobody.index.xml.

What You Get Depends on Your Subscription

• Full Icecat subscribers get access to the complete database — all brands, all categories.
• Open Icecat subscribers get access to the openly available product data sheets. The files work the same way; only the scope of products differs.

The index files are available in all languages (English, Dutch, German, and more), so you can work in the locale that fits your market.

For more information, see the Icecat Susbcription Plans. You can request Full Icecat via the contact page.

You can fill in several IP addresses, separated by a space.

Proposed flow based on the Index Files

Batch processing is handy when you want to download the product sheets directly. In this case you can use the index files to retrieve the product information you need.

1. Download the relevant index, see helper below
2. Sort and select the products you need. For example, Brand, Category ID. Quality, On market.
3. Note that pre-sorting means less sheets to download, so less network activity and less storage needed on your servers.
4. Download the relevant product XMLs you need using the path parameter or XML API. For efficiency we advise avoiding downloading all possible products.

Vertical Indexes

If you operate a speacialized store and wish to upload only a selected category, for example, Fashion, take a look at 🔍Vertical Index files.

Index Files Helper

To get more information about Locales, please check locales and language code.

Explaining the Index File Structure

All the XML Index files, including Vertical Index have the same structure!

<files.index Generated="YYYYMMDDHHMMSS">
   <file 
     path="/export/level4/JA/36153639.xml" 
     Product_ID="0" 
     Updated="20240830203543" 
     Quality="ICECAT" 
     Supplier_id="25" 
     Prod_ID="HR2345/19" 
     Catid="2266" 
     On_Market="1" 
     Model_Name="HR2345/19" 
     Product_View="213335" 
     HighPic="<http://images.icecat.biz/img/gallery/img_36153639_high_1505590007_7852_25770.jpg>" 
     HighPicSize="320472" 
     HighPicWidth="2400" 
     HighPicHeight="2400">

   <M_Prod_ID>MAPPED PRODUCT CODE</M_Prod_ID>
   <EAN_UPCS>
    <EAN_UPC Value="9999999999999"/>
    <EAN_UPC Value="9999999999998"/>
   </EAN_UPCS>
   <Country_Markets>
    <Country_Market Value="BG"/>
    ...
    <Country_Market Value="SE"/>
   </Country_Markets>
  </file>
</files.index>

• Generated – Date when the files.index.xml (source for the data) was generated in format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS. Could be used to identify whether the index file is updated.

<file>

• path – path within data.icecat.biz to export link  https://data.icecat.biz/export/<AccessLevel>/<Lang>/<Icecat_ID>.xml. May be appended to data.icecat.biz
• Product_ID – Icecat product ID. Primary product identifier, could be used in any API.
• Updated – When the product was last updated in format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS
• Quality – The quality of the product. It may be one of two values: SUPPLIER – only the original product data as imported from a brand’s CMS, not yet standardized by our editors. ICECAT – data-sheet is standardized and reviewed by our editors.
• Supplier_id – Brand ID from the SuppliersList.xml. The Supplier (Brand) name is a Primary product identifier.
• Prod_ID – Product Code. Primary product identifier, could be used in any API.
• Catid – Category unique ID from CategoriesList.xml.gz
• On_Market – if the product has at least one channel distributor of Icecat partners.
• Model_Name – Short product description, summarizing the product. In API it is referred as product model description. Usueally is translated to the Requested language,
• Product_View – how many times the product datasheet was fetched. Good to measure popularity of the products.
• HighPic – A link to the product’s main picture of type ‘high‘ or an empty string if there is no main picture. Main picture is great to take a look at the product or to be used as preview. Extended product datasheet has many images in the Gallery.
• HighPicSize – The size of the main picture of type ‘high‘ in bytes, or 0 if there is no main picture.
• HighPicWidth – The width of the main picture of type ‘high‘ in pixels, or 0 if there is no main picture.
• HighPicHeight – The height of the main picture of type ‘high‘ in pixels, or 0 if there is no main picture.

💡Check the Updated timestamp to only download products that have changed or check only for new products to improve update performance cycles.

<M_Prod_ID>

Other mapped Product Code for the same product. This happens if the same product is distributed in different configuration or simply because of different taxonomies between resellers and manufacturers.

You can use any of the Product Codes in Icecat APIs.

<EAN_UPC>

• Value – GTIN (EAN, UPC)

<Country_Market>

Active markets for the product. The product is considered on a country market if it has at leat one distributor in the country. Countries are also exaplained in the Languages table.

• Value – Country code

Troubleshooting