SEOAnt overwrote my image alt-text on Shopify — how to get it back
SEOAnt includes a bulk/auto image alt-text feature that generates templated alt-text from your product data and applies it across every image in one pass, so the change can happen the moment it's enabled. That replaces any alt-text you wrote by hand. Shopify keeps no version history for alt-text — it lives in the image's alt attribute, not a roll-back-able metafield, and most full-store backups skip it entirely — so there is no native undo and no record of what each image said before.
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.
Stop the source first: in SEOAnt open Image Optimization > Image Alt Text and turn off the auto/template alt-text rule, plus any scheduled or auto-sync run — otherwise it re-applies its template on the next pass and overwrites your fix again. Check whether it touched collection and variant images too, not just main product images.
Re-import from a pre-change export if you have one: if you exported products with the "Image Alt Text" column (Shopify's product export or Matrixify) before the change, re-import only that column. Because alt-text is an image attribute rather than a meta field, a column re-import is the cleanest restore.
For images with no export, rebuild the ones that matter first: pull the images actually earning impressions from Google Search Console > Performance > Search results > Images, write specific alt-text for those, and re-enter it manually — there is no native rollback for alt-text.
Going forward, keep a daily snapshot of every image's alt-text alongside your other SEO fields (most backups skip alt-text) so a single bulk run is flagged the day it happens — with the app that changed it named — and yesterday's alt-text restores in one click instead of being re-typed by hand.
Source: SEOAnt app listing (bulk/auto image alt-text feature); Shopify Help Center: add alt text to product media
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.