🔧 Quick Info: This tool adds many product images to your Shopify store at once instead of uploading them one at a time. Provide a ZIP file with images plus a CSV mapping file, and we’ll attach them to products by SKU, set alt text, and optionally mark featured images.
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 Should You Use This?
Use this tool whenever you need to upload many product images at once. Common scenarios include setting up a new store and needing to load images for a large catalog, receiving a batch of new product photos and wanting to attach them quickly, or wanting to update alt text or swap featured images across many products in one pass.
Before You Get Started
- 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.
How to Use It
1 Open the Tool
Navigate to the Bulk Image Uploader tool in your Your Store Wizards dashboard for your Shopify store.
2 Upload Your Files
On the Upload Images step:
- Upload your ZIP file containing the images
- Upload your Supplemental CSV file
3 Map Your CSV Columns
Once the CSV is uploaded, map its columns to the required fields: SKU, image name, ALT, and Primary Image.
4 Confirm Email Address
On the Notification Settings step, confirm the email address where you’d like your confirmation sent. By default this is the email on your account.
5 Start the Upload
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. When it finishes, we’ll send an email confirmation to the address you chose.
File and Field Reference
Your supplemental CSV needs these columns. All four are required:
| Field | What It Is |
|---|---|
| alt | The alt text to set on the image. |
| image_name | The exact filename of the image inside your ZIP (for example, shirt-front.jpg). This must match the file in the ZIP exactly. |
| primary | Set to true to make this image the product’s primary (featured) image; otherwise leave it as not-true. |
| sku | The SKU of the product variant in your store. This is how each image is matched to a product. |
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
“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.