I’ve downloaded many different kinds of free props that are available on websites like CGTrader and Turbosquid, but when I append them into my blender project, they do not have any textures.
How do I include the textures?
Are you downloading .blend files or are you referring to .obj files?
If it’s .blend files, you can literally just press Ctrl + C to copy object from one blender instance, and Ctrl+P into another Blender instance and it should transfer it with the material etc…
If you’re talking about .obj files, you have to add the texture maps individually into a material as you would if you were to texture the object yourself.
Bit more info would be helpful though on how you’re going about this process 
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Append is a feature for blend files… you are sure you don’t have to import them ?? So blend file or something different… also… are there any textures included anyway ??
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You say you “append” them – are they all .blend files? Then I don’t see why the materials shouldn’t be properly applied; even duplicate material names get resolved correctly for me. Exceptions are files that were created with an ancient Blender version. Are you sure you’re looking at the scene in the right viewport shading mode (Material or Rendered Preview)?
I suspect you might instead be importing files. In what format? For example OBJ files come with separate MTL files that contain the material definitions, and they might not specify the required materials in a directory structure that corresponds with your setup.
How about an example? Link us to a prop that doesn’t work with materials for you so we can check it out.
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I don’t understand why MTL files are sent separately, from Maya or Max then surely you Bake the Materials (not the shadows) on the object, then you don’t need to supply a MTL file along with it allowing you to open your Model anywhere without missing Shaders?
That seems the most logical thing to me.
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In the Wavefront Object format there is an actual Object file OBJ and and an according Material file MTL… the later can be used for mutliple objects…
… an Maya or Max or Blender or any other specific App-file is something completely different… also the other “interchange” formats like FBX (proprietary), or Alembic… just to name a few…
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Why? Because OBJ is an old (early 1990s) geometry definition format; colour and texture were always handled separately. That doesn’t change if you bake textures, the texture maps will still be stored in the MTL file. OBJ is a very efficient and simple format, and it’s not proprietary, which is why it’s still in use today (especially for 3D printing).
If you want all geometry and textures stored in one file, you need to use another format, like FBX.
It’s not usually a problem to have an OBJ with a companion MTL, it’s transparent to the user, because importers deal with that well in most cases – as long as the creator did the right things when exporting. Which they don’t always do, and that’s when textures don’t automatically apply and you have to either apply them manually or edit the MTL file to point it at the right directory.
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