🖼️ Lazy load

What is Lazy load?

Normally, a browser tries to load everything on the page at once — even images, videos, and maps way down at the bottom. That slows everything down.

With lazy load on, those elements stay paused until a customer scrolls close to them. The rest of your page loads quickly first, and pages with lots of media feel much snappier.

Lazy load covers two kinds of heavy elements:

Images — in:

Theme files
Product, collection, and blog descriptions
Regular pages

Iframes & videos — including:

YouTube and Vimeo videos
Google Maps
Other iframe embeds

Why use Lazy load?

Faster initial load — the browser only loads what customers can actually see.
Cuts the heaviest page weight — a single video embed can outweigh your whole page; deferring it loads your content first.
Big win for media-heavy stores — long pages full of photos, videos, or maps feel much snappier.
Better Core Web Vitals — less upfront work means a quicker first paint.
No visual change — images, videos, and maps still appear normally as customers scroll; they just load on demand.

⚙️ How to use Lazy load

Step 1: Open Speed up

Go to Speed up.

[Screenshot: Speed up page open]

Step 2: Turn on Lazy load

Turn on Lazy load (images) and Lazy load (iframes and videos) — enable whichever your store needs.

[Screenshot: lazy load toggles switched on]

Step 3: Apply to your theme

Click Speed up now and pick a theme to apply changes.

[Screenshot: Speed up now button and theme selection modal]

Step 4: Verify it's working

To check it's working, open your store and look at an image in the page source — it should have loading="lazy" on it. Embedded videos and maps should only load once you scroll near them.

[Screenshot: browser inspector showing loading="lazy" attribute on an image tag]

📌 Merchant Notes

Images at the top of your page (the first thing customers see) still load right away — no delay.
Always click Speed up now after turning this on to apply the changes.
The biggest gains come on media-heavy pages — lots of photos below the fold, or embedded videos and maps, which are the heaviest elements to load.
Covers YouTube, Vimeo, Google Maps, and other iframe embeds.
This feature requires the Pro or Expert plan.
For an overview of all optimization features, see Speed up.

Speed Up Instant Page