Shopify makes it easy for store owners to upload product images to their online stores. However, there may be times when you need to download or save those images for use outside of Shopify. For example, you might want to download product photos to use in ads or on social media. Or you may need to download images for an offline catalog or brochure.
Whatever the reason, Shopify does provide some ways for store owners to download images from their stores. In this guide, we’ll cover the main methods available for saving Shopify product images, including:
- Downloading images individually from the product page
- Downloading all product images at once using the Shopify admin
- Using apps and plugins to export images
With the right approach, you can easily save any or all of the images from your online store for use elsewhere. Let’s look at how.
Downloading Individual Images from Product Pages
The easiest way to download a Shopify product image is directly from the individual product page. You can grab any image shown on a product page, including the main images, alternate angles, and more.
Here’s how to download images one at a time from product pages:
- Go to the product page in your Shopify store for the image you want to download.
- Right click on the image and choose “Save image as…” (Chrome) or “Save Image” (Firefox).
- Choose where you want to save the image file on your computer.
This will save the original high-resolution version of the image to your computer. You can then upload or use the saved image as needed.
The advantage of this method is you can quickly grab specific images as needed. The downside is that it only allows you to download one image at a time. That’s fine if you just need a few specific product photos, but it’s not efficient if you want to save your entire product image library.
For that, you’ll need to use one of the other methods covered next.
Downloading All Images through Shopify Admin
The Shopify admin gives store owners a way to export all images for every product in the store. This lets you get all product images in one batch for convenient use elsewhere.
Here are the steps to download all product images using the Shopify admin:
- Log in to your Shopify admin and go to the Products section.
- Click the “Export” button at the top right and choose “Export products”.
- In the export dialog, check the box for “Images” and adjust any other settings as needed.
- Click the “Export products” button.
- When the export is complete, click to download the ZIP file containing your images.
This ZIP archive will contain every product image in your Shopify store, organized into folders by product. It provides an easy way to get all images at once for offline use or archiving.
The product export method is better if you want all images, but still has some limitations:
- It only includes product images, not blog images or other media.
- You have to re-run the export every time you add new products/images.
- Shopify limits how often you can export product data.
For these reasons, most store owners turn to apps and plugins for the most robust solution to downloading all store images…
Using Apps to Download Images
Apps provide the most flexible and efficient way to download images from Shopify. Specialized apps are designed to grab all images from your store on demand or on a schedule.
Some popular options include:
- Storefront Image Downloader: This free app can export all images on demand with one click. It captures product images plus collection images, blog posts, and more.
- Image Export: Another free app that downloads all images from your store automatically on a recurring basis.
- ShopSync: A paid Shopify app ($9.99/month) that syncs your product catalog to your computer, including all images.
App benefits include:
- Downloading all store images, not just products.
- Scheduled and automated exporting.
- Works around Shopify export limits.
- Provides ongoing backups of images.
Apps do require installing and configuring, so aren’t as simple as the individual image or export methods. But they provide the most complete and automated approach to getting Shopify images out of your store.
Other Ways to Download Images
In addition to the main methods outlined above, there are a couple other approaches store owners sometimes use to get Shopify images:
View Page Source
Product and other page types on Shopify themes generally link to images using relative URLs like /assets/image.jpg. You can view the page source to find these URLs, then visit them individually to download each image.
This can be tedious and time-consuming, though, so it’s usually easier to use one of the other methods.
Use Image Hosting
If you use Shopify’s built-in image hosting instead of a third party, the images exist in your store’s Shopify admin. You can manually download them there if needed:
- Go to the Media section in your Shopify admin.
- Open the folder for a product.
- Click the menu for an image and choose Download.
Again, this is impractical for more than a few images. Apps and mass exports are better for bulk image downloads.
Best Practices for Downloading Shopify Images
To ensure the best results when saving Shopify product images and other media, keep these tips in mind:
- Use apps for bulk downloads – For complete and automated downloads, apps are the number one option.
- Export PNG files – PNG preserves transparency information compared to JPG.
- Save original or source images – Don’t just download images sized for your theme; get the full size originals.
- Download periodically – Don’t just get images once; set up regular downloads to get new additions.
- Organize and back up – Have a system to catalog and back up your downloaded images.
Following these best practices will allow you to reliably get your Shopify product images and other media out of Shopify for smooth use in other applications and channels.
FAQs about Downloading Shopify Images
Some common questions about getting images out of Shopify include:
Do I need to download images to use them elsewhere?
Usually yes – Shopify hosts the images, so to use them externally you need to download them. However, some apps like Kit or Privy let you share Shopify images without downloading by integrating with your store.
Can I schedule automatic image downloads?
Yes, using a Shopify app like Image Export. Apps can be set up to automatically export images on a schedule, like daily or weekly.
What is the image file format?
Shopify supports the standard JPG, PNG, and GIF formats. PNG is best for maintaining transparency. The original source files are typically high-quality JPGs.
Do I need to re-upload images after downloading them?
No, downloads are just for your own use. Product images remain hosted on Shopify. You only need to re-upload if you want to replace an existing image.
What if some images are missing from my download?
Double check your app settings or export options. You may need to select additional resources like blog posts and collections to get all images. Try a different app if issues persist.
Can I download images directly from the CDN?
Shopify’s CDN (content delivery network) is designed to protect images and serves them dynamically, so you can’t access them directly. You need to go through the admin or an app.
Conclusion
Shopify stores contain product images, collection graphics, blog photos, and much more visual content. While these images are hosted and served by Shopify, store owners often need to download the original files for use elsewhere.
The best methods for downloading Shopify images include:
- Grabbing individual images from product pages
- Exporting all product images through the Shopify admin
- Using a dedicated app to automatically capture images
Apps provide the most robust Shopify image downloads. But the other methods work well for one-off needs.
Hopefully this guide has provided all the tips and steps you need to successfully get full access to the visual content in your Shopify store. Just remember to download PNG format for transparency, get original sizes, and set up recurring exports.
With the right approach, you can have all your Shopify images saved locally so they can be used anywhere your business needs them.
