Image Custom URL
Send any image in a gallery to a product, a page, or an external site.
By default a gallery tile opens the lightbox. Image Custom URL is the other option: give each image its own destination and make the gallery a set of links.
Turning it on
Three steps, in this order:
- Site-wide: Shaped Gallery → Settings → Modules → Image Custom URL is on by default.
- Per image: open the Edit Gallery modal, select a tile, and fill in Custom URL in the details panel on the right.
- Per gallery: open Image Click Action and set Click Action Type to URL.
Step 3 is the one people forget. Without it the URLs are stored but nothing follows them, because the gallery is still opening the lightbox.
What it's for
| Use | How |
|---|---|
| A shop lookbook | Each photo links to its product page. |
| A portfolio | Each image links to the full case study. |
| A partner or sponsor wall | Each logo links to that company's site. |
| A visual site map | Each tile links to a section of your own site. |
Things worth knowing
It's a per-item field, not a per-gallery one. Every image can go somewhere different — that's the whole point. An image with no Custom URL set simply isn't a link.
The URL belongs to the gallery, not the attachment. The same photo can link to a product in your shop gallery and to a blog post in your journal gallery. Your Media Library is untouched.
External links are fine. Full https:// URLs to other sites work. So do relative paths on your own site.
Switching the module off hides the option in two places. With Image Custom URL off, the URL button disappears from Click Action Type and the Custom URL field disappears from both details panels. Nothing is erased — your stored URLs and your stored click action come straight back when you switch it on again.
A stored URL with the module off doesn't produce a dead link. The tile falls back to a plain image rather than linking nowhere.
It's mutually exclusive with the lightbox, per gallery. A gallery is either a lightbox gallery or a link gallery. If you need both behaviours, use two galleries.
A recipe
A WooCommerce lookbook:
- Build a gallery of styled product photos.
- In the Edit Gallery modal, set each tile's Custom URL to its product permalink.
- Set Click Action Type to URL.
- Turn on titles sourced from Attachment Title, so each tile names the product.
- Set Hover Animations to Lift — a lift reads as "clickable" in a way a zoom doesn't.
Where to go next
- Edit Gallery modal — where the per-item field lives
- Image Click Action reference
- Modules