Shopify themes, liquid, logos, and UX
Good Morning,
I am just wondering if anybody is aware of a way I can bulk upload ALT text to images etc on my site? I have a lot of images across my site and have realised I haven't input ALT text as I have gone along so this is now missing from everywhere - is there an easy way for me to do this aside from going back through every single image etc?
URL: https://endless-retro-22.myshopify.com/
Theme: SHELLA
Thank you in advance,
Bulk CSV import
Or use an app like ez-exporter, or matrixify , or automation tools
https://matrixify.app/tutorials/update-image-alt-text/
An alternative if you've sanely named your images for accessibility and SEO is to customize a theme to use the filename in liquid for the alt-text output. Useful path if there's ALOT of products and it will take some time for someone to backfill all the alt-text. Or just set the all text to the product.title, or the first sentence of the product.description , etc.
Contact paull.newton+shopifyforum@gmail.com for the solutions you need
Save time & money ,Ask Questions The Smart Way
Problem Solved? ✔Accept and Like solutions to help future merchants
Answers powered by coffee Thank Paul with a ☕ Coffee for more answers or donate to eff.org
Renars here from Matrixify app.
Thank you for suggesting the use of Matrixify for this @PaulNewton
Following the previously linked tutorial you sure can bulk Update Image Alt Text.
There you can also export the alt text and see other basic image details such as links and dimensions.
I hope that this helps, if you need assistance with this task using Matrixify app, please reach out to our support directly.
Am I correct in understanding that the bulk export/import would only pull in product images and not others?
Hey there, @Endlessretro!
That's a great question, and I'm glad to hear that you want to add alt text to your images. It is a great inclusion from an accessibility standpoint, and it can also help with your store's SEO.
The easiest way to bulk upload alt text to all images is by using an app. You can find the full list of apps here, but here are some popular ones:
I also wanted to share this blog post that includes some alt text tips, as well other image optimization strategies:
I hope this information is helpful!
Greta | Shopify
- Was my reply helpful? Click Like to let me know!
- Was your question answered? Mark it as an Accepted Solution
- To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Shopify Blog
Hi Endless,
Rich here from Caseo.ai. I would personally avoid using simple bulk alt text. Old school non-ai alt text apps typically automate the process by inserting generic product titles and variants as image descriptions. This method, while efficient for large catalogs, falls short in providing meaningful context and descriptive detail, especially for users with visual impairments, low internet bandwidth, or image display issues.
Instead, use properly crafted alt text that conveys the basic information about an image but also its context and relevance to the product or the page. It is time-consuming, but I'd recommend our app Caseo AI or Alttext.ai which are both A.I powered.
I know this is an old thread, but only just seen it! I am interested in the comment from @PaulNewton about customizing a theme to use the filename in liquid for the alt-text output. All my image files have been given alt-text friendly file names, so this might work for me if I only knew how to do it...
Hi, thanks for the question, honestly to use the filename for the ALT Text, it would be a big coding job as the ALT Text can not be auto-populated by the file name and Shopify renames the file too adding sizing information to it. It's a great idea though. We've just upped our free trial to 50 complementary ALT Text generations if you want to try it out caseo.ai to see if it's a good alternative.
Knowing how to do something and actually doing it are two very different things.
For implementing this you need to be very comfortable with liquid and editing themes.
And you have to test thoroughly to make sure parts of the website aren't outputting gibberish you otherwise wont know is happening, but may surface as conversion problems or accessibility complaints.
For using an images/media'sw filename as alt test.
An image object src url contains the filename, parse it out from that.
https://shopify.dev/docs/api/liquid/objects/image#image-src
or use the direct output to parse https://shopify.dev/docs/api/liquid/objects/image#image-referencing-the-image-object-directly
If using an asset filter via a string name the filename is already known somehow so just put it in a variable to use with both the filename and alt text logic
https://shopify.dev/docs/api/liquid/filters/asset_img_url
For using If this is for dynamic images throughout a website it can be a lot of work to update all image logic behavior.
Some themes sanely have a snippet for handling image outputs, but most don't have 100% of media output covered like this.
For people to read use string filters to get a cleaner set of characters and remove any extras added by the shopify CDN.
More advanced:
map the filenames into a metafield or metaobject that have the alt text as key/value pairs. A JSON metafield could simplify the logic in some cases as it allows properties to be accessed in liquid. This still requires having clean filenames returned/parsed by liquid.
for small sets of media/files using locale files for key/value pairs is also valid.
Contact paull.newton+shopifyforum@gmail.com for the solutions you need
Save time & money ,Ask Questions The Smart Way
Problem Solved? ✔Accept and Like solutions to help future merchants
Answers powered by coffee Thank Paul with a ☕ Coffee for more answers or donate to eff.org
Thanks for the very detailed reply Paul! Very interesting and helpful. Sadly it's way beyond my capabilities, so I will have to bite the bullet and upload Alt Text manually.
2m ago Learn the essential skills to navigate the Shopify admin with confidence. T...
By Shopify Feb 12, 2025Learn how to expand your operations internationally with Shopify Academy’s learning path...
By Shopify Feb 4, 2025Hey Community, happy February! Looking back to January, we kicked off the year with 8....
By JasonH Feb 3, 2025