Media Library: Every Image for Your Pages and Products

Overview

The Media library keeps every image you upload for your store in one place: the ones you add in the page builder, on products and collections, the ones copied in when you import products, and any you upload to the library itself. Upload an image once and use it on any page or product. It also keeps the short videos your pages play.

Open Catalog → Media library. The media library is on every plan.

Images are compressed the moment they are uploaded, whichever screen you upload them from: they are resized to a sensible size for the web, saved as WebP, and their hidden photo details (camera, date and the place a photo was taken) are removed. Shoppers get small, quick images, and nothing private about where a photo was taken goes out with it.

Upload images

1. Open Catalog → Media library.
2. Drag images onto the upload box, or click choose files. You can drop several at once; each one uploads on its own, and an image that cannot be uploaded tells you why without stopping the others.
3. Each image appears at the top of the library as soon as it is ready.

You can upload JPEG, PNG and WebP images up to 10 MB each. Other formats, including SVG, HEIC and AVIF, are not accepted. Save the image as JPEG or PNG first.

Videos

You can also upload MP4 and WebM videos of up to 9 MB each, for the page builder's Video section. Drop them on the same upload box, or click Upload in a Video section. A video is stored as you upload it, without being compressed again, so export it at the size you want shoppers to watch. For a longer video, use YouTube or Vimeo in the Video section instead.

In the library a video shows as a video icon rather than a preview. Select it and click Open the video to watch it in a new tab.

Find an image

• Search by file name or alt text.
• Filter by type (WebP, JPEG, PNG, MP4 or WebM) and by the dates an image was added, using the two date boxes.
• The newest images come first. Scroll down and more load on their own, or click Show more.

The library shows small previews, so it opens quickly however many images your store has. Search stays quick too, even with tens of thousands of images; a search of one or two letters checks every image, so on a very large library type three or more.

Alt text

Alt text describes an image for shoppers who use a screen reader, and for search engines. Select an image, type its Alt text and click Save alt text.

When you pick an image from the library in the page builder, its alt text is filled in for you if the section's Alt text box is still empty. Text you have already typed in a section is never replaced.

Use an image from the library

• Page builder: every image field (a section's image, background or poster, each image of a gallery and each testimonial photo) has a Library button next to Upload. Click it, select an image and click Use image, or click the selected image again. You can also upload into the library from the same window.
• Video section: click Library to pick a video. Image fields only ever offer images, and the Video section only videos.
• Products: click the Library tile among the product's images to add one from the library: in Add product (next to Upload), in Edit product on the products list, and in Product images on a product's edit page (next to Add). Select an image and click Use image. It is used as it is, without uploading it again. The first image is the cover. A new product can start with up to 8 images; a product holds up to 12.

Images you upload with Upload in the page builder, or on a product or collection, are added to the library too.

Where an image is used

Select an image to see Where it is used. The list shows every place on your store that shows it, with a link to change it:

• pages, including unpublished changes, a page's sharing image and older page text;
• your site's header and footer sections and its theme;
• saved page templates;
• product photos and product descriptions;
• variant photos;
• collection images and descriptions.

Places shoppers can see right now are marked live.

Delete an image

You can only delete an image that nothing on your store uses. If it is in use, Delete image is not available, and the list shows where to replace it first. This means a page or product never loses a picture because it was deleted from the library.

When you delete an image it is removed from the library and from storage, and this cannot be undone. If you copied the image's link with Copy link and pasted it somewhere the store does not check, such as an email or a social post, it stops showing there.

Images already on your store

Images you uploaded before the media library existed are added to it automatically from the pages, products and collections that use them. This happens a little at a time while the media library is open, and carries on from where it stopped the next time you open it. A message at the top of the library shows it working.

Who can use it

Anyone whose role can see products can browse the media library. Uploading, editing alt text and deleting need a role that can edit products: Owner, Admin, Manager or Staff. Every store only ever sees its own images.