Shopify: Give Every Product Photo a White Background Automatically (Admin API + Background Removal API)

A Shopify custom app (Settings → Apps and sales channels → Develop apps) with the read_products and write_products scopes and its Admin API access token; a bgclear API key from the dashboard (10 free full-resolution credits to start; preview size is free for a dry run); Node 18+. Shopify's productCreateMedia mutation accepts a public URL as originalSource, and the bgclear JSON response gives you exactly that — a hosted result URL valid for 24 hours — so no file juggling.

const SHOP = "your-store.myshopify.com";
const ADMIN = `https://${SHOP}/admin/api/2025-07/graphql.json`;
const shopify = async (query, variables = {}) => {
  const res = await fetch(ADMIN, {
    method: "POST",
    headers: { "Content-Type": "application/json", "X-Shopify-Access-Token": process.env.SHOPIFY_TOKEN },
    body: JSON.stringify({ query, variables }),
  });
  const { data, errors } = await res.json();
  if (errors) throw new Error(JSON.stringify(errors));
  return data;
};

async function* products() {
  let cursor = null;
  do {
    const data = await shopify(`query($cursor: String) {
      products(first: 50, after: $cursor) {
        pageInfo { hasNextPage endCursor }
        nodes { id title media(first: 10) { nodes { id ... on MediaImage { image { url } } } } }
      }
    }`, { cursor });
    for (const p of data.products.nodes) yield p;
    cursor = data.products.pageInfo.hasNextPage ? data.products.pageInfo.endCursor : null;
  } while (cursor);
}

JSON mode: pass the Shopify CDN URL as image_url, ask for bg_color=ffffff and format=jpg (Shopify re-encodes anyway, and JPG on white is the smallest), and use the product-image id as the idempotency key so a re-run never charges twice.

async function whiteBackground(imageUrl, idemKey) {
  const res = await fetch("https://www.bgclear.ai/api/v1/remove", {
    method: "POST",
    headers: {
      Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.BGCLEAR_API_KEY}`,
      Accept: "application/json",
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
      "Idempotency-Key": idemKey,
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({ image_url: imageUrl, size: "auto", format: "jpg", bg_color: "ffffff" }),
  });
  if (res.status === 429) {
    await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 1000 * Number(res.headers.get("X-RateLimit-Reset") ?? 5)));
    return whiteBackground(imageUrl, idemKey);
  }
  if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`bgclear ${res.status}: ${(await res.json()).error.message}`);
  return res.json();   // { url, width, height, credits_remaining, ... }
}

size: "auto" processes images up to 4 megapixels at full resolution synchronously — most Shopify product images are 2048 px and fit. For larger originals, post to /api/v1/jobs instead (bulk guide).

async function attach(productId, url, alt) {
  const data = await shopify(`mutation($id: ID!, $media: [CreateMediaInput!]!) {
    productCreateMedia(productId: $id, media: $media) {
      media { id status }
      mediaUserErrors { field message }
    }
  }`, { id: productId, media: [{ originalSource: url, mediaContentType: "IMAGE", alt }] });
  const errs = data.productCreateMedia.mediaUserErrors;
  if (errs.length) throw new Error(errs.map((e) => e.message).join("; "));
  return data.productCreateMedia.media[0];
}

for await (const p of products()) {
  const first = p.media.nodes.find((m) => m.image);
  if (!first) continue;
  const key = `shopify-${first.id}`;
  const { url, credits_remaining } = await whiteBackground(first.image.url, key);
  await attach(p.id, url, `${p.title} on white background`);
  console.log(p.title, "→ attached; credits left", credits_remaining);
}

Shopify fetches the image from the result URL asynchronously (status: "UPLOADED" then "READY"), well inside the 24-hour window. Reorder or delete the old media afterwards with productReorderMedia / productDeleteMedia once you have eyeballed a sample — keep the originals until then.

Dry run first with size: "preview": it is free, returns an 800 px result, and lets you check edges on jewellery, glass and white products before spending a credit. A full run costs one credit per image — 500 SKUs is the $39 pack ($0.078 per image), 2,000 is $129. Credits never expire, so buy once for the catalogue. Because the idempotency key is the Shopify media id, re-running the script after a crash skips the charge for images already processed within 24 hours; beyond that, track processed ids in a JSON file so the loop can resume. If you sell on Amazon or Flipkart as well, the same JPG-on-white output meets their main-image requirement — see Amazon listing background remover.