Questions about Rubik Variant Images

Shopify puts every photo of a product into one gallery, so a shopper who picks Blue still scrolls past the red ones. The app assigns each image, video and 3D model to an option value, and the gallery then shows only what the selected value owns. The same option values can also be drawn as image swatches, colour swatches or pill buttons in place of the theme dropdown.

Install from the Shopify App Store listing, then enable the app embed in your theme editor under App embeds. The app walks you through both steps after installing, and the Variant image status card on its dashboard tells you whether the embed is on.

No. A product with no assignment behaves exactly as it did before, so you can start with the products where the gallery is worst and leave the rest alone.

A couple of minutes by hand. If the images are already in a sensible order in the Shopify gallery, the bulk run does hundreds of products without you opening them one by one.

Yes, one product with no time limit. Paid plans start at 25 dollars a month. Shopify grants a seven day trial once per shop, so it applies the first time you subscribe.

Yes, that is the point of the app. Shopify's own variant image field holds exactly one picture per variant; here you group as many as you like behind an option value. The ceiling is Shopify's limit of 250 media on a product.

Assign the images to the option that changes how the product looks, usually colour. When a product has several options, a variant shows the media its values have in common, so a Blue and Large variant shows the blue images.

Yes. They are assigned the same way as images and filtered the same way on the product page.

It reads five things about each image: the product title, the option name, the option value, the filename and the alt text, and it looks at the picture itself. It proposes an assignment that you can correct before saving. It runs on one product at a time and uses your plan's monthly AI allowance.

It reads the order your images already sit in inside the Shopify gallery. A variant's first image opens a group, and every image after it belongs to that variant until the next boundary. It makes no AI calls and works through the catalogue in the background. There is an opt-in that sends the same run through the automatic matcher instead.

The first one in that value's list. To change it, drag another image into first position.

Images you never assigned normally show for every variant. Turn this on and they disappear from the product page while still being available as the collection thumbnail. It is what you want when the first image is a lifestyle shot that belongs to no colour.

Yes. Leave it unassigned and it shows for all of them, or use the setting that allows the same image to be assigned to more than one value.

Enable swatches in the app and choose which option they replace. Three kinds are available and they can be mixed across options: image swatches, colour swatches and pill buttons.

Yes, through a visual editor: shape, size, spacing, borders, the selected state and more. The swatches render inside a shadow root, so your theme's CSS cannot leak in and break them, and there is a custom CSS field for anything the editor does not cover.

Yes, on the product card, across collection pages, search results and home page listings. Clicking a card swatch swaps the card image and can update the card price and the add to cart link. The feature is off until you switch it on, and card support covers a smaller set of themes than product page support.

Yes. The swatch library holds one image or colour per option value for the whole shop, so setting Navy once applies it everywhere that value appears.

The app ships integrations for more than 350 Shopify themes, including the Dawn and Horizon families, Prestige, Impulse, Impact and Focal, and it reads Shopify's native variant selector as well as custom ones. Eight page builders are supported: EComposer, EcomWize, Foxify, GemPages, Instant, Omnise (formerly Beae), PageFly and Replo.

Ask support to map it. Many unmapped themes already work, because the app also reads the native selector. For a custom theme, share the theme file and support will map the selector.

Enable the app embed on the new theme in the theme editor, then check a product page. The assignments themselves are stored on the products, not in the theme, so nothing has to be redone.

No. It installs as a theme app extension and reads its data from a product metafield. There is no theme file to edit, and switching the app off leaves the theme exactly as it was.

It can conflict with an app that also rewrites variant images or the variant picker. If you run one, tell support which app it is and they will work out a setup where the two do not fight.

The assignment is stored in a Shopify metafield and read by the theme app extension from the page itself. No request goes to our servers while a shopper browses, so a slow or unreachable app server cannot hold up a product page.

Check three things in this order: the app embed is enabled in the theme editor, the product is actually configured in the app, and the option you assigned images to is the one the theme's selector uses. Those three cover almost every case.

Usually the app embed is off, or the product page uses a custom gallery the app has not been pointed at. Support can map a custom gallery.

The storefront reads a metafield that Shopify caches for a short time. Reload the product page after a minute, and check with the theme editor closed, since a preview session can serve an older copy.

That is the app setting the featured image to the first image of the value. Drag the one you want into first position, or turn off the option that overwrites variant featured images in the advanced settings.

Inside the app, on the plans page. Shopify handles the billing change and prorates it, and the charge stays on your Shopify invoice.

The app warns you and gives you a 30 day window to upgrade or to free some slots. Only after that window are the storefront features switched off, and they come back on their own as soon as the shop is inside its limit again.

There is a master switch on the app's Settings page. Turning it off takes the storefront features down and leaves every assignment in place for when you turn it back on. Give the product page a minute to catch up, because the storefront reads a metafield Shopify caches briefly.