Bulk Image Uploader for Shopify
🔧 Quick Info: Upload product images in bulk by matching them to your products.
What it does
Bulk Image Uploader lets you add many product images to your Shopify store at once instead of uploading them one product at a time. You provide a ZIP file containing your image files plus a supplemental CSV that tells the tool which image belongs to which product, what its alt text should be, and whether it should become the product’s primary (featured) image.
The tool reads your CSV, finds each image inside your ZIP, matches it to a product in your store by SKU, and attaches the image. When a row is marked as primary, that image is set as the featured image for the matching variant.
When to use it
- You’re setting up a new store and need to load images for a large catalog.
- You’ve received a batch of new product photos and want to attach them quickly.
- You want to update alt text or swap featured images across many products in one pass.
Before you start
- Have your image files ready in a single ZIP file.
- Prepare a supplemental CSV that lists each image, its SKU, its alt text, and whether it’s the primary image.
- Make sure the SKUs in your CSV match the SKUs already in your Shopify store. Images are matched to products by SKU, so a SKU that doesn’t exist in your store can’t be matched.
- File limits: the ZIP file can be up to 250 MB, and each individual image inside the ZIP must be under 8 MB. The CSV file can be up to 250 MB.
Step-by-step
1 Open the Bulk Image Uploader tool from your Shopify tools list.
2 Upload Images step:
- Upload your ZIP file containing the images.
- Upload your Supplemental CSV file.
- Once the CSV is uploaded, the Match your file’s columns screen appears. Match its columns to the required fields: SKU, image name, ALT, and Primary Image.
3 Notification Settings step: choose whether you’d like a confirmation email when the upload finishes. Delivery is off by default; if you turn it on, the email on your account is prefilled so there’s nothing to type.
4 Submit the tool. You’ll see a confirmation that your image upload has started.
The upload runs in the background, so you don’t have to keep the page open. If you turned email delivery on, we’ll send a confirmation to the address you chose when it finishes.
File / field reference
Your supplemental CSV needs these columns. All four are required:
| Field | What it is |
|---|---|
| sku | The SKU of the product variant in your store. This is how each image is matched to a product. |
| image_name | The exact filename of the image inside your ZIP (for example, shirt-front.jpg). This must match the file in the ZIP. |
| alt | The alt text to set on the image. |
| primary | Set to true to make this image the product’s primary (featured) image; otherwise leave it as not-true. |
How matching works:
- Each row’s image_name is looked up against the files inside your ZIP.
- Each row’s sku is looked up against the variants in your Shopify store.
- When both match, the image is attached to that product. A row marked primary = true also sets that image as the featured image for the variant.
Troubleshooting / FAQ
“Image not found in zip file”
— The image_name in your CSV doesn’t match a file inside your ZIP. Check for typos, missing file extensions, or a different filename. The name must match exactly.
“Image was not processed, as sku was not found in the store”
— The SKU in that row doesn’t match any product variant in your Shopify store. Confirm the SKU exists in your store and is spelled the same way.
Some images uploaded but others didn’t
— The tool reports per-row errors. Review the error details for the rows that failed; the most common causes are a mismatched image name or a SKU that isn’t in your store.
My upload is still running
— Uploads process in the background. Large ZIP files take longer. You’ll get an email confirmation when it’s done if you set email delivery to “Yes.”