🔒 SEO Vault

Hextom Bulk Product Edit overwrote my image alt text on Shopify

Hextom Bulk Product Edit can mass-set fields with rules like "set image alt text to product title." When that task runs across your catalog it replaces the alt attribute on every image — including the alt text you hand-wrote for accessibility and Google Images — with the templated value. Shopify stores only the current alt text per image and keeps no version history, so there is no native undo once the task finishes.

If you didn't already have a backup, those old values are gone — Shopify keeps no history.

The steps below recover what you can. To make the next time a 1-click undo instead of hours of CSV work: a daily snapshot of every SEO field. Free to monitor, no card — and SEO Vault only reads your store unless you click restore.

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Step by step

  1. Stop the source: open Hextom Bulk Product Edit > Task History, identify the task that wrote alt text and how many images it touched, then pause or delete any scheduled or recurring version of that rule so it cannot run again.
  2. Recover from a CSV: go to Products > Export — the Shopify product CSV includes an "Image Alt Text" column. If you have any earlier export or backup file, re-import it to restore the previous alt text, matching rows by Handle and image src.
  3. If you have no old CSV, pull archived copies: open the Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) snapshots of your key product pages from before the edit, read the alt="" attributes in the saved HTML, and re-enter them manually for your highest-traffic images.
  4. Prevent the next overwrite: keep a daily snapshot of every image's alt text (plus meta titles, descriptions, tags and handles) so a bad bulk edit becomes a 1-click restore. SEO Vault saves these fields each day and alerts you when a bulk change is detected, naming the likely app.

Source: Shopify Help Center — "Add alt text to product media" and the product CSV "Image Alt Text" column; Hextom Bulk Product Edit app listing (bulk-edit alt text feature).

Related fixes

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SEO Vault keeps a daily snapshot of every SEO field on your store — meta titles, descriptions, alt-text, tags, handles (products AND collections) — and emails you the moment something changes in bulk, with the likely app responsible. One click restores yesterday's state, just the SEO fields. Free to monitor and get alerted; $14/mo for 1-click restore.

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