Image bulk upload

Technical Q&A

Topic summary

A user needs to upload 15,000 product photos to Shopify but faces a 250-file upload limit. Their spreadsheet contains image URLs pointing to Shopify’s own storage, meaning the images must be physically uploaded before they can display.

Proposed Solutions:

  • Shopify Admin API: For users with technical support teams, the API can handle bulk uploads beyond the standard interface limits.

  • Third-party bulk upload apps: Multiple participants recommend apps like Smart Image Upload or CS-Smart Bulk Image Upload, which can match and upload images from cloud storage (Google Drive, Dropbox) using SKU, barcode, title, or metafield matching. These tools provide better logging than CSV imports for troubleshooting.

  • Product structure workaround: If the 250-image limit applies per product, separating variants into individual products gives each its own 250-image quota.

  • Professional services: One commenter offers migration assistance for large-scale uploads.

The discussion remains open with no confirmed resolution from the original poster.

Summarized with AI on October 27. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1
  • I have 15000 product photos to upload. The limit in file upload is 250 at a time. How do I upload more than 250 at a time.
  • The spreadsheet is already imported with image urls.
    So I just need to get the photos uploaded
  • thanks!
2

If your spreadsheet already contains publicly accessible image URLs, Shopify does not require you to upload these images manually; it will automatically pull them from the web.

Here are the steps to follow:

  1. Ensure that all image URLs in your CSV file are public and do not require login access.
  2. Format your CSV correctly, making sure to include the Image Src column.
  3. Navigate to Products > Import in Shopify and upload your CSV file.

Shopify will then retrieve each image from the provided URLs and associate them with the corresponding products.

2nd Option-

If you have Support Team then, you can use Shopify Admin API .

3

Hi Steve thanks for your reply. The image url is using shopify in the spreadsheet. So I need to load the images to shopify in order for them to appear.

4

Hello @ReneeN1234
You specified the fact that the spreadsheet is already imported with image urls but you can’t see images in your store. This means images has been ignored and you only have a product data imported in your store and now you need to upload and match images with products. If your images are stored in Google Drive or Dropbox you can bulk match and upload them by SKU, barcode, title or metafield by using Smart Image Upload app.
For transparency I am the co-founder and developer of the app. I recorded a video to show how it works.

5

We understand the challenge you’re facing with the image upload limit. At Pelican Commerce, we have extensive experience handling large-scale product uploads, including bulk image processing for Shopify and other platforms.

We’ll analyze your current setup and work on a solution to bypass the 250-file limit effectively—ensuring all 15,000 product photos are uploaded correctly without disrupting your existing data or structure.

Feel free to get in touch, and we’ll be happy to take care of this for you.

6

Hi @ReneeN1234 ,

I hope you are well! Shopify doesnt allow to upload more than 250 images into a product so what I can suggest is you can separate your variants as individual products and so for each variant you will have 250 image quota to upload :slightly_smiling_face: And you can set SKUs, Barcodes or metafields as related with images names so it will be easier to use a bulk image upload tool like CS-Smart Bulk Image Upload app. Logs of these tools are better than csv import, so you can also check if there is any problem or not while uploading