How to translate images on Shopify: banners, product photos and size charts

Shopify's Translate & Adapt app translates your store's text, but Shopify's help lists product images among the content it can't translate, and the words inside a picture are not text the app can read. What Shopify can do is show a different image file per language in theme sections. Translating images on Shopify is therefore two jobs: making translated versions of the pictures, then getting each version in front of the right customers.

What Shopify does with images (as of October 2026)

Sources: Shopify Help Center, Translate & Adapt; the gap with text in pictures is a recurring Shopify Community question.

Third-party apps in the Shopify App Store, such as Taglio PicTranslate, KeepFormat and EZ Product Image Translate, offer to display a different image per language. Compare what each listing says it covers (product media, theme sections, alt text) and preview every language before you rely on one in your live store.

Step 1: list every image that contains text

Go through the store page by page and note each picture with words in it:

Step 2: decide what each image needs

Taking the text out is often the best long-term choice: it becomes store text that Translate & Adapt can handle, that search engines and screen readers can read, and that you can edit without regenerating an image. Do not translate packaging photos if the packaging itself is not translated: the image would show a product the customer does not receive.

Step 3: translate the images

1. One image. Upload it to the image translator (JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 10 MB). Choose the target language and, on a wide screen, the mode: Marketing for banners and promotional visuals, Technical documentation for spec images and size charts, which asks the model to keep a clear hierarchy, use precise technical terms and translate specifications and measurements correctly.
2. A catalog. From the Pro plan, batch translation takes up to 10 images per run, each in one or more target languages (up to 50 output images per run), and lets you download the results as a ZIP. Name each source file after the product, such as linen-shirt-size-chart.png: downloads are named after the source file plus the target language (linen-shirt-size-chart-german.png), so you can match files when you upload them.
3. An automated pipeline. Plans from Pro up include the image translation API for stores that add products every week.
4. Supplier images. If your source images come from suppliers with Chinese text, see supplier images in Chinese. Selling on Amazon too? Amazon has its own product image rules: see Amazon product images.

Using translated images in a store is commercial use, which requires a paid plan: Pro or above. Credit packs only add credits; they don't change the personal-use terms of the free Basic plan.

Step 4: publish each language version

Theme sections: Localize

From Shopify's help:

1. Upload the translated file in Content → Files.
2. In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store and click Edit theme.
3. In the theme editor, select the image or video.
4. Click the three-dot button and select Localize. The Translate & Adapt editor opens.
5. Select the language.
6. In the row where the file is displayed, click Change and pick the translated file.
7. Click Close.
8. Click Save.

Product images: app or theme code

Translate & Adapt can't translate product images, so a per-language product gallery needs one of the apps above or custom theme work, which a developer should scope (for example an image in a file metafield, which Shopify's help says the translation editor can localize, displayed by the theme's Liquid code). Simpler alternative: keep product photos free of text and put the information in the translated description.

Size charts: what software must not decide

• Units. Showing centimeters, inches or both is a merchandising decision. An image translator translates labels; it should not convert values, and a generated image can change digits. Compare every number with your product data.
• Size systems. US, UK and EU sizes are different scales, not translations of each other. Conversion tables must come from the manufacturer's data and be checked by a person.
• Better format. A size chart built as a text table in a page or in the product description can be translated like any other text, read by screen readers and updated without regenerating images.

Rights and alt text

• Rights. Photos from a supplier or a brand may be licensed for display only as provided. A translated version is a modified copy: check that your agreement allows it, and leave brand marks as they are.
• Alt text. In the admin, open Products, click the product, click a media item, then Add alt text and Save alt text. Shopify allows up to 512 characters and recommends 125 or fewer (Shopify Help Center). Describe what the image shows, then translate it: Shopify has supported translating image alt text through CSV file imports since July 2025 (Shopify changelog), and some image translation apps handle it too.

Checklist before a language goes live

• Preview each language on the storefront and confirm every localized section shows the right file.
• Prices in images. A price inside a picture does not follow currency conversion. In a multi-currency store, keep prices out of images.
• Numbers and sizes. Every value in translated size charts and callouts matches your product data.
• Mobile crops. Banner text near the edges can be cut on small screens; check each language on a phone.
• Claims. Words like "waterproof", "organic" or a certification name can carry legal meaning in the target market. Have them reviewed.
• File weight. Large banners slow pages down; compress them before uploading.
• Alt text exists in each language.