How can I make the product photo gallery only show the selected color's photos?
If you want your product gallery to "freeze" on one color — so shoppers only see photos for the color they've picked, instead of scrolling through every color's photos — BuildMyPOD has a setting for that.
This is already turned on by default on new products, so most stores won't need to do anything. But if your gallery isn't behaving this way, or you want to adjust how strict it is, here's how it works.
How do I turn this on?
- Go to your theme editor.
- Open a product
Click on the Product media gallery block.
Look for the option called "Show only the selected variant's images" and make sure it's turned on.
- Save your changes.
Once this is on, when a shopper selects a color, they'll only see that color's photo and its mockups — nothing from any other color. This applies to the main photo slider, thumbnails, the photo grid, and the zoom-in view.
Note: videos and 3D models always stay visible, no matter what.
Why do I need this option at all?
Shopify only allows one image to be directly assigned to each color variant. But many products need more than one photo per color — for example, a front print photo and a back print photo for the same shirt.
To work around this Shopify limit, BuildMyPOD uses the order of your photos to figure out which images belong to which color. This lets you show multiple photos per color, even though Shopify itself only supports one.
Want something less strict?
There's also a lighter-touch option called "Hide unselected variant media." This hides photos from other colors, but still shows any general photos that aren't tied to a specific color (like a size chart or lifestyle photo used across all colors) — those will show up alongside every color, not just one.
This option is off by default and works well if you only need one photo per color plus a shared image like a size chart. It doesn't support multiple photos per color (like front and back prints) — use "Show only the selected variant's images" for that instead.
Important: your photo order matters
For "Show only the selected variant's images" to work correctly, your product photos need to be arranged in a specific order, from left to right (or top to bottom) in your product media:
✅ Correct order: Color A's photo, then any extra photos for Color A (like a back print), then Color B's photo, then Color B's extra photos, and so on.
Example: Ivory front → Ivory back print → Ivory size chart → Berry front → Berry back print → Denim front → Denim back print...
The system groups each photo with the next color photo that appears after it. So everything between one color's photo and the next color's photo gets treated as belonging to that first color.
❌ What goes wrong: If you place a shared image (like a size chart) in the wrong spot, it can get grouped with the wrong color. For example, if your size chart is placed right before the Watermelon color's photo instead of right after Ivory's photos, the theme will treat the size chart as belonging to Watermelon, not Ivory.
If your gallery doesn't look right after turning this on:
- Go back to your product's media and re-order the photos so each color's photo (and any extra photos for that color) are grouped together, immediately before the next color's photo, or
- Turn the option off for that product
Updated on: 29/10/2026
Thank you!