Add & manage product images
The Images tab on a product holds its photo gallery. You can add images three ways — upload a file from your device, paste an image URL, or supply a base64 data URI — then drag them into order and pick which one is the primary image. The primary image is the thumbnail that represents the product everywhere else in SKU: the products list, order lines, and packing slips.
This guide covers adding, reordering, setting the primary image, and deleting images, plus the edge cases around unreachable URLs and how files are stored on the server.
Before you begin
- You need the products.update permission. Without it the Images tab is read-only — the Upload from Device, Add from URL, drag-to-reorder, set-primary, and delete controls are all hidden, and you see the gallery only. See Product permissions reference.
- Open the product from the products list and select the Images tab. The tab is part of the product detail page.
Add an image
Upload a file from your device
- On the Images tab, click Upload from Device (or drag image files onto the gallery / the Add image drop zone).
- Pick one or more image files. You can select several at once — each is uploaded in turn.
- The files are stored on SKU's server and appear in the gallery.
The uploaded file must be a real image — its MIME type has to start with image/. A non-image file (a PDF, a text file renamed to .jpg) is rejected by validation with "The uploaded file must be an image" rather than failing deep in image processing.
If the gallery was empty, the first image you upload automatically becomes the primary image. A product with no images shows an Add image drop zone when you can edit it, or a plain No images placeholder when the tab is read-only.
Add from a URL
- Click Add from URL to open the URL import panel.
- Paste an image URL (for example
https://example.com/photo.jpg). Click Add Another to queue more URLs. - For each URL, choose how SKU should treat it:
- Keep as Remote — SKU stores the external URL as-is and serves the image straight from that remote host. Nothing is copied to SKU's server.
- Fetch & Store — SKU downloads the image now and stores a local copy, then serves it from SKU. Use this when the source host is unreliable or may change.
- Click Import.
The same image field also accepts a base64 data URI (a string beginning with data:image/...;base64,). SKU decodes it and stores it as a local file, exactly like an upload. This is mainly used by integrations and imports rather than typed in by hand.
What happens when a URL can't be reached
When you add a Keep as Remote URL, SKU tries to fetch the image to confirm it resolves. If the fetch fails, the image is not rejected — it's still added with the URL you supplied, but it's flagged as unresolvable and you get a warning, not an error.
The warning wording depends on whether the image was being set as primary:
| Image role | Warning message |
|---|---|
| Primary (main) image | The main image url: <url> failed to resolve |
| Any other image | The image url: <url> failed to resolve |
Because the record is saved anyway, an unreachable image shows up later as a broken image. Products that have one are flagged on the products list — apply the Has Broken Image filter (under the Other filter group) to list them. To find and repair these across the whole catalog, see Find & fix broken product images. Note that a Fetch & Store URL that can't be downloaded is treated the same way — the raw URL is stored and flagged, not silently dropped.
Reorder images and set the primary
The gallery is drag-and-drop. Grab an image by its drag handle and move it; the new order saves automatically.
The first image in the gallery is always the primary image — it carries the Primary badge and spans a larger tile. So there are two ways to change which image is primary:
- Drag an image to the front of the gallery, or
- Hover a non-primary image and click its star (Set as primary) — SKU moves it to the front and marks it primary.
Setting a new primary image has two automatic effects:
- The others are un-set. Making one image primary clears the Primary badge from every other image on that product, so exactly one image is ever primary. SKU enforces this every time an image is saved, so always change the primary through the Images tab.
- Packing slips are re-queued. Changing the primary image re-queues packing-slip reprints for that product's open sales orders that already have fulfillments, so the picking paperwork shows the current image. This happens in the background.
If you delete images until only one remains, SKU automatically promotes that last image to primary.
Delete an image
Hover the image in the gallery and click the trash icon. The image is removed immediately.
Deleting an image also cleans up storage: if the image is a locally stored file (uploaded, fetched, or from a data URI), SKU deletes the underlying file and its thumbnail from the server. If the image is an external Keep as Remote URL, only the gallery entry is removed — SKU never had a local copy to delete, and it doesn't touch the remote host.
What SKU tracks for each image
You manage images entirely from the tab, but it helps to know what SKU keeps for each one:
| What SKU tracks | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Location | Where the image lives. A stored image is served from your account's own storage; a Keep as Remote image keeps the external URL you supplied, unchanged. |
| Stored or remote | Whether SKU holds a copy. This decides whether deleting the image also removes a file from storage. |
| Reachable | Whether the last check found the image. Marked unreachable for a URL that can't be reached. |
| Primary | Whether this is the product's primary image. Only one per product; setting it un-sets the others. |
| Gallery position | Updated as you drag. |
| Name | Optional label. |
| Last checked | When the image was last checked for reachability — this is what drives broken-image detection. |
An image is unique per product by its location — you can't add the same URL to the same product twice.
Next steps
- Find & fix broken product images — locate and repair unresolvable images across the catalog.
- Edit a product's details — update the rest of the product alongside its images.
- Product detail page reference — everything on the product detail page, tab by tab.
- Publishing images to sales channels is covered in the Listings guide (coming soon).
Video transcript
The Images tab holds a product's photo gallery. Add images three ways — upload files from your device, drop them onto the gallery, or paste an image URL. The first image you add becomes the primary — the thumbnail that represents the product across SKU. Add from URL opens a panel where you paste one or more image links. For each, choose Keep as Remote to serve it from its host, or Fetch and Store to download a local copy. Once images are in the gallery, drag them into order and pick which one is primary.