iPhone videos (MOV, HEVC) in a Shopify gallery

A thirty second clip of a candle being lit, a slow pan across a finished kitchen, a dog trying on a raincoat. Phone video is now the easiest content a small store makes, and the file that comes off an iPhone is a .mov recorded with the HEVC codec, usually in 4K. This guide follows one such clip into a Snug Gallery block: what the editor accepts, where the size limit sits, what Shopify does to the file before anyone sees it, and how the clip behaves in the grid and the lightbox. It ends with the cases where a YouTube or Vimeo link is the better choice.

What an iPhone actually hands you

Two camera settings decide the file. Formats, with High Efficiency (HEVC) or Most Compatible (H.264), and Record Video, which sets resolution and frame rate. The defaults on a recent iPhone are High Efficiency and either 1080p at 30 frames per second or 4K at 30, depending on the model and what was last chosen. The container is QuickTime, so the extension is .mov whatever the codec inside.

Size follows the second setting more than the first. Apple's own Record Video screen lists rough figures: a minute of 1080p at 30 fps is about 60 MB, a minute of 4K at 30 fps about 170 MB, and a minute of 4K at 60 fps about 400 MB, all in High Efficiency. A twenty second product clip in 4K at 30 is therefore around 55 MB. A two minute walkthrough in 4K at 60 is around 800 MB. Keep those two numbers in mind for the next section.

AirDrop and the Files app hand over the original. Sending the clip through Messages, WhatsApp or e-mail usually does not: those services re-encode to something smaller, and the result is still a valid video but a visibly softer one. If the clip looks worse on the store than on the phone, this is the first thing to check.

What the editor accepts

The upload area in the gallery editor accepts MP4, MOV and WebM videos alongside images. The file picker is set to allow those extensions, and the server checks the type the browser reports against the same three. A .m4v file is treated as MP4. There is a small fallback for a quirk of some browsers, mostly on Linux, that report no type at all for a .mov file: the app then reads the extension instead, so a file that still ends in .mov goes through, and one that was renamed to something else is rejected as unsupported.

The size limit for video is 250 MB per file. That is deliberately below Shopify's own ceiling, because the upload travels through the app server on its way to Shopify and is held in memory while it does. Images are capped at 20 MB in the same place. A file over the limit is refused before any bytes move, with a message that names the file and the limit, so you lose a few seconds rather than a long upload.

Against the iPhone figures above, 250 MB is a minute and a half of 4K at 30 fps, about four minutes of 1080p at 30, or roughly 35 seconds of 4K at 60. For the kind of clip a gallery wants, which is short, that is comfortable. For a long walkthrough it is not, and the last section covers what to do instead.

Shopify's limits, and the codec question

Shopify's Files library accepts MOV, MP4 and WebM up to 1 GB and ten minutes, with a maximum frame size of 4096 pixels and up to 120 frames per second. Every video it accepts is converted and served as MP4 or as HLS streams, whatever came in. So the shopper never receives your .mov; they receive Shopify's encoded copies, picked by their connection speed in browsers that support streaming.

Shopify's requirements page lists H.264 as the supported video codec and does not mention HEVC. In our experience iPhone clips recorded in High Efficiency upload and process normally, because the conversion step re-encodes them. If a clip is refused or sits in processing for a long time, two fixes work. Switch the phone to Most Compatible under Settings, Camera, Formats, which records H.264 from then on. Or export the existing clip from the Photos app or iMovie, which writes H.264. Neither changes how the clip looks on the store, since Shopify re-encodes either way.

One more Shopify rule worth knowing: the file name cannot begin with a period, and the clip must be at least a quarter of a second long. Neither is a problem for anything a phone produces.

The processing wait

An image appears in the editor within a second or two of uploading. A video does not. The app asks Shopify for an upload target, posts the bytes there, then creates the file in your Files library, and at that moment Shopify reports the file as uploaded or processing with no poster frame. The editor shows the tile with a Processing video label and polls until Shopify marks it ready. For a short clip that is typically well under a minute; for a long 4K one it can be several.

While that happens the gallery is safe to leave open or to close. The storefront skips any item that has no preview image yet, so a half-processed video never appears as a broken tile to shoppers; it simply is not there until it is. Once ready, Shopify supplies the poster frame automatically and the tile fills in. If a tile stays on Processing for a long time or flips to a failure state, the upload error guide and the file missing guide cover the recovery steps, including replacing the poster.

How the clip behaves on the page

By default a video tile looks like an image tile with a play badge over it. The poster is served through the same responsive image pipeline as every photo, so nothing heavy loads until somebody wants it. Clicking opens the lightbox and plays the clip inline, with controls, and the lightbox guide describes the keyboard and swipe behaviour that applies to video as much as to images.

There is one block setting that changes this. Autoplay uploaded videos muted makes every uploaded video play silently and loop inside the grid instead of showing its poster. It is the right choice for a few short clips that act like moving photographs, and the wrong one for a gallery of twelve one minute videos, because every one of them starts loading when the page does. The setting's own description in the theme editor says as much. It applies to uploaded videos only; YouTube and Vimeo items always show a poster.

Phone clips are often vertical. The block's Image shape setting crops tiles to a common shape, so a 9:16 clip in a Square grid shows its middle in the tile and its full frame in the lightbox. If vertical video is the point, set Image shape to Portrait (3:4) or to Original, which keeps each item's natural ratio, as the layouts guide explains.

When to use a YouTube or Vimeo link instead

The editor also takes a YouTube or Vimeo URL as a gallery item, and that path has no size or length limit on the gallery side because the video stays on the host. Use it when the clip is over 250 MB, when it is already published on your channel and you want the view counts in one place, or when the footage is long enough that a hosted player's quality switching matters more than a seamless lightbox. The video upload versus YouTube guide weighs the two in detail.

A middle route for a long iPhone clip is to trim it. A gallery rewards fifteen good seconds more than two unedited minutes, and the trim tool in the Photos app on the phone itself gets a 4K clip under the limit without touching a computer. Export from Photos after trimming so the file is a fresh, complete video rather than a trimmed reference to the original.

Shopper videos

The customer photo form on the storefront accepts images only: JPEG, PNG, WebP and HEIC, checked by reading the first bytes of the file rather than trusting the name. A shopper cannot submit a video through it. If you want customer clips in a gallery, collect them another way and upload them yourself, with the moderation step that implies. The customer photo form guide covers what the form does take.

Frequently asked questions

Can I upload a .mov file from my iPhone to a Shopify gallery?

Yes. Snug Gallery accepts MOV, MP4 and WebM up to 250 MB each, and Shopify converts the file to MP4 and HLS for shoppers, so the QuickTime container and the HEVC codec are not a problem on the storefront. A twenty second 4K clip is well under the limit; a multi-minute 4K clip is not, and should be trimmed or linked from YouTube or Vimeo instead.

Why is the video limit 250 MB when Shopify allows 1 GB?

The upload passes through the app server on its way to Shopify and is held in memory while it does, so the cap protects that step. 250 MB covers about ninety seconds of 4K at 30 fps or four minutes of 1080p, which is longer than almost any gallery clip. Larger files can go into Shopify Files directly from the admin and then be added to the gallery from the Files tab, or be hosted on YouTube or Vimeo and linked.

My video shows Processing in the editor. How long does that take?

Until Shopify finishes encoding it, which is usually under a minute for a short clip and a few minutes for a long 4K one. The storefront does not show the item until a poster exists, so shoppers never see a broken tile in the meantime. If it stays on Processing far longer than that, the upload error and file missing guides describe how to replace it.

Does the gallery autoplay iPhone videos?

Only if you turn on the Autoplay uploaded videos muted setting on the block. Then uploaded videos play silently and loop in the grid. Off, which is the default, each video shows a poster with a play badge and plays in the lightbox when clicked. Autoplay suits a handful of short clips; it loads every video on page load, so avoid it for long or numerous ones.