How to Free Up Storage Space on Shopify

April 10, 2026
Shopify Tips
10 min read

Shopify store owners hate to delete unused files, but they tend to do a mass deleting of images only after they’ve reached their file storage limit. This is because most file deletions (such as product deletions) don’t remove all associated files. Images are updated for a brief moment during a store rebrand. Product images are downloaded for a blog post. Files linger in Shopify admin’s Files section for over two years until someone manually crawls through and deletes them all. Unfortunately there is no “unused files” filter in Shopify Files, making this task a painful manual process.

Many Shopify stores accumulate 10+ GB of files without realizing it. Typical cause: the same product photographed in different seasons, uploaded in multiple resolutions (web, Instagram, print), and the older versions never removed. Files pile up fast when nobody is cleaning house.

The guide covers the physical location of Shopify files, how to locate orphaned files, both individual file deletion and bulk file deletion, file storage limits on the different Shopify plans, and what to do when you run out of storage space but can’t find the file you need to delete.

In this post

Where Shopify files actually live

Shopify keeps two types of files and merchants can’t seem to tell them apart.

Product media: Images, videos and 3D models that are uploaded within the product. Product media is stored as attachments within the product record, and can be previewed in the product editor in the media gallery on the left side. Note that when a product is deleted, all associated product media will also be deleted, but deleting an image from a product does not immediately delete the uploaded file from the Shopify CDN. Until you explicitly delete the image from the product media gallery, the file will remain stored on Shopify’s servers.

Files (Content > Files): Files uploaded through the Files admin section, or uploaded using the rich text editor in specific locations such as pages, blog posts, or theme sections. These are not related to products. After deleting a blog post that referenced an image for example, you might find an orphan in the Files area.

We field many questions about product cleaning. An important point to understand is that cleaning up products and cleaning up Files are two separate endeavors. And neither of them will touch your product media. That means you still need to run an image audit to look for products that may have too many images and look for holes where some products are represented but not imaged. A tool like our image audit tool can help you organize your product media.

Storage limits by Shopify plan

Shopify doesn’t seem to actively advertise storage limits in quite the same way as they used to, but the limits are indeed there.

  • Starter plan: Limited storage (primarily for link-in-bio type storefronts)
  • Basic Shopify: Generous but not unlimited. You’ll hit friction around 15-20 GB of Files.
  • Shopify (standard): Same CDN infrastructure, higher practical threshold.
  • Advanced and Plus: Effectively unlimited for most stores, but asset management still matters for page speed.

Yes, you may have enough space, but what about the slowdown that occurs just before the hard limit is reached? I personally run a store with about 20,000 files in the admin, and it’s a nightmare just to browse through, search for products, or perform various tasks. Uncompressed 5 MB images sit idle in your media CDN serving no purpose and taking up valuable space. To assist you in choosing a plan that will provide enough space for your product catalog, this tool will calculate which plan fits best based on your current features.

How to find orphaned and unused files

Shopify made it easy to see where files are used in the Files section. A new “Referenced by” column shows where a file is used on the site, whether it’s a theme, product, collection, page, blog or article. Note that this feature does not catch 100% of references (it only looks for references that were saved after this feature launched). And it doesn’t account for instances where a file is referenced via another file. This is still a great feature, and it will work for most stores.

Here’s the manual approach that actually works:

  1. Go to Content > Files in your Shopify admin.
  2. Sort by date uploaded (oldest first). Ancient files from deleted collections or old blog posts are your top candidates.
  3. Check the “Referenced by” column. Files with no reference are likely orphans. But don’t mass-delete blindly because some files are referenced by custom code, apps, or external pages that Shopify doesn’t track.
  4. Search for known old collection or product names. If you discontinued “Summer 2023 Collection”, search “summer-2023” in Files. Those images are probably safe to remove.
  5. Filter by file type. If you uploaded PDFs, spreadsheets, or ZIP files for customer downloads, check if those download links are still live. Deleting the file breaks the link.

Honestly this is a time consuming task. Shopify really should add an option for a bulk select all unreferenced files. I’m having to do this one file at a time. I did look into getting an app to help but would have to scan for orphans.

Deleting files one at a time

For small cleanups: This method can be used to delete files from the Shopify File Manager. Go to Content > Files, find the file, click on it, and then click Delete. Shopify will then ask for confirmation that you wish to delete the file. Once you have confirmed, the file will be gone.

You can also select multiple files at the same time and delete them as a group. admin supports selecting up to about 50 files per page, so you’ll be doing a lot of clicking through the pages if you have a lot of files.

Be careful you don’t need this file URL referenced anywhere outside of Shopify. If you embedded your shopify hosted image in an email template, external blog or social media post deleting this file from files in the admin will break the link and not provide a redirect or fallback. Been there?

Bulk deleting files and products

When removing an entire product line or section, a bulk delete is often faster than individually deleting products with CS File & Product Manager -> Products -> CS Bulk Delete Products. It allows you to select by collection, vendor, tag, date, or by inventory status. A preview of the products to be deleted is provided before the delete operation is committed to avoid accidentally deleting a top seller. Recurring deletes can also be scheduled for cleaning out products on a repeated basis.

When you are removing products from your store, all the media (e.g. product images, videos, etc.) for that product is deleted as well. This is probably the fastest way to free up space on your store for products that are no longer relevant. BUT, if you have links or indexing going on to those product pages, you’ll create 404 error pages for those users. Create your 301 redirects before you delete, or delete/transfer immediately after for store redeesigns.

For content items that are not product related, you will continue to add blog images, banners, archived theme files, etc through the Content > Files interface, no tool exists within the Shopify interface to bulk add files automatically. Export your list of files (there is no native export within the Files interface but you can pull files via the Shopify Admin API), manually compare that list to your live pages and delete any content that is no longer required.

Preventing file bloat going forward

Cleanup is easy to write because fixing the problem prior to it occurring is inherently harder. Here are 5 simple rules to keep your disk usage below absurd levels (i.e., limit the number of files so that a simple “Cleanup” method doesn’t time out).

  • Compress images before uploading. Use the image compressor to batch-resize everything under 200 KB. This alone cuts storage use by 80% for most stores.
  • Use a naming convention. Include the SKU or collection name in every file name. When a collection is discontinued, searching for its name in Files catches everything.
  • Delete products with a proper tool. CS Bulk Delete Products removes products and their media in one step.
  • Audit quarterly. Set a calendar reminder to check Files once per quarter. A 15-minute scan prevents a 4-hour cleanup later.
  • Back up before you delete. Export your images first with CS Export Product Images. You can always re-upload if you delete something you shouldn’t have.

Image management for variant images and variant variants (variants of variants) depends on how you associate images to variants. Managing an organized gallery of images for manual assignment or for upload via Rubik Variant Images is easier than managing a messy gallery with duplicate images and variants with no corresponding images. For stores with many colors, each color may be a separate product, and a single combined listing store with Rubik Combined Listings can maintain a clean product catalog without redundant media.

“This really make the images organized especially if there are multiple variants. It makes the website looked clean.”

Rubik Variant Images review, Shopify App Store

FAQ

Does Shopify have a storage limit?

Yes. Limits vary by plan but aren’t always clearly stated with specific GB numbers. I’d say Basic and standard have enough room for about 15-20 GB of Files, and that Advanced and Plus have more like 50 GB or so of room. Product media counts separately.

How do I find unused files in Shopify?

Go to Content > Files in your admin and look at the “Referenced by” column, the files that have no references are very likely to be orphans. You may also find old collections or product names that have been discontinued in the file names.

Can I bulk delete files in Shopify admin?

You can select about 50 files per page, check the boxes next to them and delete them at the same time. For bigger jobs, you need to page through the results or use the Admin API.

Does deleting a product also delete its images?

Yes, removing a product removes the product media but files uploaded under Content > Files which were linked to a deleted page or post remain on your site.

What happens if I delete a file that’s still being used?

The file URL breaks on the spot for any page, email, or external link that referenced that file and will display a broken image. Shopify does not create redirects for deleted files.

Should I compress images before uploading to save storage?

Absolutely. Most product images come in from photographers in a very large file size (5-15MB) which once optimised for the web will only be around 100-200KB in size. By doing this you’ll be saving around 90% of your storage usage and benefit from improved page speed too.

Try CS Bulk Delete Products free
Install Rubik Variant Images

Demo store: See the live demo store. Video tutorial: Watch the setup walkthrough on YouTube. Docs: getting started guide.

Co-Founder at Craftshift

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