Same Image(s) duplicating across multiple products?

[LeeAurich]

I have a store for a garden centre

As a result I have a lot of products (literally thousands) that share the same images (as we get the same plants in from multiple suppliers depending on the time of the year.) whether it's a collection place-holder image or a specific image of the plant/product.

Previously I was able to click the "copy Image" link on the files page and paste it into the image section for the product.
Recently, when I do this, Shopify has been creating duplicate images rather than linking to the same image.

To summarise: Let's say I have 20 products that share the same image, previously I was able to link the same file for all products so they shared the same image. Now shopify is creating 20 separate duplicate images meaning the page has to load 20 individual copies of the same image for each product, rather than 1 image shared for each product.

Here's what it looks like in my files section:
All of these images in the list are exactly the same, and each one was created when I tried to copy the link of the original to new products.

This is causing the following problems for me:
1. it increases the page load time as instead of loading 1 shared image, it's now loading individual duplicate images
2. it's majorly clogging up my files section.

It's not a massive problem as I can still run my store with it. But I'd rather go back to how it was working before. Is there a way to tell shopify to share a particular image when I want to use it on another product rather than creating all these duplicates? 

[LeeAurich]

Is anyone else having this issue? Anyone know of a solution?

[Patrick_McCabe]

We are experiencing the same issue. We have a large number of products that use the same view 2 image. Today I updated that image and 130 duplicate images got created. How can I prevent this from happening?

I know we have unlimited storage but it is an unsightly mess and makes navigating the image list, from the page editor, more difficult.

EDIT: Also, just noticed that the images don't have the same filesize as the one I originally uploaded, they are slightly smaller. I don't know why but they are.

EDIT2: I think I know what is going on behind the scenes to cause this. Shopify is creating a different URL for images depending on what they are associated with. Instead of http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/0/0000/0000/0000/files/something.png files linked to products use http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/0/0000/0000/0000/products/something.png 

Maybe Shopify has always done this and the alternate files simply weren't visible from the admin side. It is a bit of a waste, and potentially a minor SEO mess, but I don't think we can really do anything about it.

[MckBA]

Having similar situation, just in my case i have exactly one copy for almost every picture. I'm also hoping for a solution to this kind of situation.

[mellimol]

Having the same problem and also hoping for a solution to this!

[old-marxeo]

same here, hope for a solution.

[chestershen]

same problem, anyone known how to resolve this?

[Tyresse]

same problem here, we need help

[apol]

Still no solution?

[mooritmag]

This is also an annoyance for me! Although not on the same scale, I have the same images set of around 12-14 images in 3 different products (retail, wholesale, subscription) and it would be so so so much more convenient if I could just select previously uploaded product imagery when adding photos to products (same as in other pages). This way the alt text would be copies over as well.

And when looking at the Files manager I could see in the References that an image was being used in 3 products. Why bother telling us an image is being used in 1 product with a dropdown to link to the product if the system does not allow you to use the image in more than 1 product?

[AS_Bloom]

Yes. I am having the exact same issue. It's very frustrating.

[RenataOnLine]

Having the same issue!  It seems that Shopify creates a copy of the image for each product. It does not detect that it is the same image in the sense that it does not want to use the original URL, and thats why it creats a URL for the image in each product.  Weird....   I guess it protects you in the case you delete the original image, you would have 20 products without images.  It also usese its own compressing, thats why the images are smaller than the original. It does not trust you original image is the optimal size.

[twilson90]

This behaviour is so odd I think it has to be a bug.

In the Admin > Content > Files section there's a column titled 'References', implying that each File object can be referenced by more than one other object in the store's database.

But it appears there's no way to reference the same image more than once.

This must create a pretty significant amount of unnecessary added storage and traffic for Shopify's servers, and I can't see any good reason why they've designed it like this.

If you try to reference the same image more than once in the product editor or through the API, it creates a copy with a unique filename (a long UUIDV4 hexadecimal string is appended to the filename).

If the same image is used on 50 products, that means 49 unnecessary copies are produced and stored for each product.

This also means the customer has to download the image again and again, as the unique filename prevents the browser recognizing that the exact same image is already cached from another product.

Would appreciate it if someone would let me know when this issue is finally addressed.

[Tyresse]

Indeed, it is. At this point I have more than 400,000 images and only 1000 or so are unique. I really don’t get it why Shopify wants to store half million images for me and pay for them when they could just add one line of code, and fix this

And this is so bad that when I’m trying to change an image, I have to re-upload my whole store

Can we get a Shopify official to comment on this ASAP please

Apparently, this is been going on for more than two years at this time

It is just terrible. How such an accomplished and established platform can have this unfixable situation.

There is no way to fix this in the liquid code. There is no way to fix this with an application. There is simply no way to get out of this because it is hard to coded into Shopify‘s file system.

I am betting if someone manages to solve this with an application, they would have 10,000 subscribers in one month

[tkaiser]

We have exactly the same issue. Luckily, we don't have that many duplicate pictures yet, but it would be amazing, if someone from Shopify would say something regarding this "feature".

Please, click "thumbs up" on OP, so that this post gains more visibility

[romko18]

I'm having exactly the same issue. It was (obviously) not solved after having the useless chat with support today. I was recommended to use an app for this, but the app developers said it's not possible to overcome the Shopify in-built feature.

[Tyresse]

Well, apparently I had a serious chat with them today and they said that they added it in development as a new feature like to be able to add one picture to multiple products so they see that it’s currently under development as of today so if we can all’s Just email them or chat with them to speed up the process for this feature, I believe we can get it going much faster 

[MBarran]

This is an issue with me too. Just adding here that it would be a very nice improvement from Shopify and we would very much appreciate it. My nuance on it is that I have an infographic picture and I would like to not have to enter the image alt image text every single time as its a little bit longer than usual.

[pro_user]

I have a rough solution that works for stores with this issue happening on listings, though isn't ideal for bulk 

1. first duplicate the listing in question as draft, with images checked.  
2. download images wish to use from duplicated image.
3. delete all images from original listing.
4. add downloaded images to original listing.
5. delete duplicated listing

[Gabe]

Hey Folks! 

Perhaps I can share some context on this new feature which forms part of our new Unified media library pools which are in ongoing development:

Unified media library pools

We’ve now unified files across content/files and products. This means that product media is now available within the files section within content in admin. This is a big step towards media centralisation across Shopify. Furthermore, we're launching a few features to help make unified file management easier. First, we're adding a new Used-In column in the content/files section where you can see if a file is being used across Shopify. This includes files in Metaobjects, Products, and Brand Settings. We have also added a corresponding "used_in" filter to help easily find files used by products. Finally, in the online store editor we are introducing a new file selector. This new modal allows merchants to save views, filter within the selector itself, and easily toggle between different types of media as applicable.

Learn more about all these features in the Shopify Help Center.

[Uni-Trend]

Hi Gabe,

Any ideas on when a single image can be used for multiple products, instead of making a new instance of each? Because now, if you want to upload a better picture, you have to now update the image for each product, instead of just replacing one image and having all the products updated with the new picture. 

[OriginalGOAT]

I sure hope Shopify plans to provide a FREE app to clean this mess up, as our image library has become so large and unmanageable, that I don't see how we will ever clean this situation up as there are no page counters (which would be very helpful!!) on this screen, so after clicking next enough times to know "HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM," I can only imagine how many more pages of duplicates we have since every product is represented at a granular level so that we can overcome Shopify 100 variant limit (and yes I do know that supposedly something is coming to help with that, and I can't wait as it is only about 3 years too late), so many of our products share the same photos due to this variant structure, so this is an absolute nightmare!  Will really be glad when this logic is truly "fixed"/implemented to actually function logically for the web world...one image that can be used for multiple products!  Until then we will continue to bombard Shopify's servers will thousands of duplicate images...enjoy!

[OptegoVision]

I am just simply disappointed in Shopify to see how many people are experiencing this issue, myself included, and there has been no resolution?  C'mon Shopify, this is obviously an issue, why haven't you fixed it yet?

[pauldemarco]

Sorry Gabe, help me understand. The duplication of images is a new feature?
Here's our use case:
We'd like to have a single image that we can use for multiple products. This is better for cache and will allow us to replace the image once and have it update all referenced products.
What we expected:

We upload the image to Content > Files, where we maintain a nice and organized media library. We go to a product and "Add From Library", where we can select from the appropriate image from our library. If in the future we want to update the image, we do so by replacing the image within the library and all referenced products therefore update as well.
What actually happens:
We upload our image to Content > Files. We go to our product and select "Add from URL" and paste in the url given to us by Shopify. It displays correctly but upon further inspection, the library has created a duplicate image and assigned a UUID to the end of it. After a few products being added, the media library becomes completely unmanageable as it gets flooded by new images. If we ever wanted to update the image, we would have to do so for each and every duplicate that was produced.

[Patrick_McCabe]

Gabe is saying this is only part of a new feature that is currently in development. The key bit is "in development". For some reason, they rolled out an incomplete feature and made a mess of everyone's files/libraries. As it stands, the "new feature" is a broken fragment of a proper feature that we have no ETA on.
It was added on May 8th, 2023, and listed as an "improvement" to Shopify Admin.

The stuff Gabe describes in his post doesn't exist / is not available yet / doesn't currently work as intended. With how slow Shopify tends to be about adding basic common sense functions or actually finishing the implementation of new features, I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see the full finished version until the middle of 2024, if not later.

[dryfire]

It reminds me of when Apple screwed up the antenna on the iPhone 4 causing it to drop calls, then told everyone it was a "feature" to help customers know how to hold a phone to their heads. 

This is a bug, not a feature, and should be fixed.

[Patrick_McCabe]

I am in agreement with you on it essentially being a bug. I just doubt that
Shopify will fix it any time soon. It has been over 3 years since they added
Pick Up and Delivery, yet proper API access to those features is still
unavailable.

We STILL cannot generate multiple box shipments for UPS shipping methods,
which is ridiculous. It is a basic feature of every single UPS compatible
shipping program/platform I have ever used. Yet Shopify doesn't support it.
They natively offer UPS discounted rates yet they don't provide full access
to UPS's features.

Hopefully they will fix this library thing soon, but I expect they won't.

[hharline]

Any ETA on when this will be fixed? Not much of a unified media library right now when you can't select images from the existing library, and when you try via URL it just makes a duplicate.

[Monkee]

Hi Gabe,

Any updates on this at all?? I can see you replied on 5 Sept but no updates since then. There seems to be a lot of people who could benefit from something that appears to be a very simple fix.

A response would be very much appreciated.

[OptegoVision]

Will this be a free app or paid?

[charhew]

The file manager (Settings >> Files) needs a way to overwrite existing files.

Our store has 3,600 product images and about 50 PDFs. About once a month, we take updated product photos to replace the old ones. We update about 30 photos each time. However, when uploading these new images, Shopify adds 32 characters to the end of the URL:

Before: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0251/9964/0648/files/mx_6053-40led-1.jpg

After: https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0251/9964/0648/files/mx_6053-40led-1_a5e9a298-9912-4a3a-b80a-9bcfb... 

This is really frustrating because the only workaround is to search each filename manually, delete them one at a time, then upload the new images. Imagine doing this for 30 images!

The other workaround is to select ALL my files (about 4,000 in total including logos, banners, and other images), delete ALL of them, then reupload ALL of them. This is a lot of work for just wanting to update 30 images. And sometimes, this workaround doesn't even work (it adds the 32 extra characters anyways).

Looking around on this forum, I can see that this has been an issue for at least 6 years because I have seen very old posts of customers complaining about the same issue. It would be incredible if file replacing was made easier in the future, and I'm hoping this post can be my grain of sand to help push to getting this feature implemented.

A bonus would be the ability to arrange files into folders, or perhaps allow us to upload and manage files using FTP.

Also, this may just be a semantics thing, but it surprises me that Files is considered a "Setting" when really it should be a basic part of managing an online store.

Thanks! 🙂

[Omnia-Anne]

I was surprised that one couldn’t upload new image & maintain url - so all locations linked to the file - would simply update. Same use like you!

anne

[rnoack1]

If you have fewer than 10 images per product you can add/remove photos via the Vela app (getvela.com, it's free), however, it relies on the sequence of the images for replacements so if the image you're updating isn't always, say, in position 3, you will still be poking at things manually. I am not at all suggesting that this feature request is not necessary -- it is!!-- but this workaround may be helpful if you're limping along in the meantime. 

[KmBerggren]

hi! I'm wondering if you figured out how to do this? I don't even know how to put an image in my CDN.Shopify folder - I have just one image to replace on each product (400 products) and would love to just drop it into the CDN and have it override the old one. Versus having to go product by product and replace it.

I was wondering if you had discovered a solution? Or if you had any advice for me.

You mention "to search each filename manually, delete them one at a time, then upload the new image" and that could work for me since it's just one image, but I've been searching and talking to Shopify help, without any luck.

Thanks so much in advance!

Sincerely, Katie

[charhew]

Hi Katie!

Go to Settings>> Files, then in the search bar, type the name of the file.
When you find it, delete it. Then upload the new version 🙂

[KmBerggren]

thanks for writing back!

Unfortunately, the original is not a file that I added. It's a file that I migrated over using LitExtension from Volusion, so the file path of the one I want to replace is:

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0507/2660/0860/t/6/assets/SizeImageSquares-ForShop-1500.jpg

and when I upload the image to the Settings - Files section, this is the path:

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0507/2660/0860/files/SizeImageSquares-ForShop-1500.jpg?v=160798092...

pretty close! But I need to get into the /assets folder somehow and I don't know how to do that.

"t/6/assets/" vs "files/"

Any thoughts? Do you think that hiring a Shopify Expert would be a good path for me?

Thank you!!
Sincerely, Katie

[InfinityLabels]

That does not work these days.

Shopify adds a string at the end of the name of each image placement so you have to manually change EVERY image:(

[flowerjen]

Pretty basic functionality. 

AS A Shopify Site Owner I WANT TO BE ABLE TO copy files to my site, put them where I want them, and have them named as I specify SO THAT I can manage my online presence without spending hours deleting files that have been updated.

GIVEN THAT media assets are the single most important customer facing feature in my shop
WHEN I want to add fresh new content that keeps customer engaged and returning to my store
THEN Shopify does not PREVENT me from keeping my content fresh, they make it EASY to replace existing content files with new ones automatically

[JDBaum42]

We need the ability to overwrite files. I'm shocked this even has to be a request, much less that it's 2 years old and seemingly hasn't been addressed at all.

[JDBaum42]

It looks like a version of this functionality has been added. In the Content>files area, there's now a replace file option in the kebab menu. So you can replace an existing image with another. There's also an option to rename the file (is that new too?).
What they DON'T have is a way to load an image, say on a PDP or theme editor, and overwrite the file if you load it with the same name. SO CLOSE, GUYS! 

I'm not sure I'll use this much as is, kinda putzy to jump over to Files and then have to search for the image you need.

 

[Paul-Trott]

I have a similar related issue. We publish images to shopify from the Salsify PIM system. I have an image transformation formula on the channel mapping to downsize the image to a certain spec when it’s pushed to shopify. I have changed that transformation to improve load speed, but the newly formatted images are not overwriting the old ones, despite the channel mapping being set to ‘replace’ images rather than append. I assume that because the image source url is the same, shopify doesn’t see it as a new image and doesn’t overwrite the existing one. Any ideas? 

[jhope]

I have this same set up - any luck on a fix? 

[Paul-Trott]

So far, no, unfortunately. 

[cleverclippings]

Hi Gabe, how can we link one photo across multiple products? This is a huge issue for all of us!

[jnoneilv1]

Okay Gabe, so where is this now? You have been hiding from this since you posted this 6 months ago and no news.

[mayalenleonz]

Having the same issue here

[maribar]

Same issue here. 

[matt_esse]

Any news Shopify, it's a bit nuts how much this destroys our content library!

[OttoCaldwell]

Yea, I have the same issue.  Really disappointed to learn that I cannot share common images across multiple products.  I have 100s of product groups that each have 100s of products that could share the same image.  If I continue to upload all my products via GraphQL, the File section is going to blow up.   Shopify, please fix this soon.  

[dryfire]

Having the same issue. Shopify, get on this, and fix it. It will save you a ton of money in duplicate storage costs.