Blog · Updated 19 September 2026
Lovable images not loading after export? Here is why, and how to fix it
How can I tell this is my problem?
- The site looks right on lovable.app but images are missing on Vercel, Netlify or your own server.
- Your project has files such as src/assets/hero.png.asset.json instead of the image itself.
- The browser's network tab shows a 404 for an address that starts with /__l5e/assets-v1/.
What is inside an .asset.json file?
A few lines of text: an asset id, your project id, the original file name, its size, and a url field. That url is the address your page uses, for example /__l5e/assets-v1/ followed by the asset id and the file name. The picture itself is kept in Lovable's storage and served by Lovable's hosting.
Fix 1: copy the images into your project
- Open your published lovable.app site and find each broken image's address, which starts with /__l5e/assets-v1/.
- Download each image by visiting your lovable.app address followed by that path.
- In your project, create the same folders inside public, so the file ends up at public/__l5e/assets-v1/ then the asset id, then the file name.
- Commit, push and redeploy. The host now serves the image at the address the page already asks for, so no code changes are needed.
Fix 2: use a host that does it for you
Lovely Hosting reads the pointer files during upload, fetches every image from your Lovable project and ships them with your site automatically. Lovely Hosting does this for you: drop the zip from Lovable's Download codebase button, pick a domain and pay $9.00 a month.
Will images I add later break again?
Yes, with the manual fix. Every new image added in Lovable gets a new pointer file, and you would copy it over again. Images that are already normal files in your repository, such as ones you uploaded to the public folder yourself, are not affected.
Try it free
Drop the zip from Lovable's Download codebase button. It is in your Downloads folder. No account, no card, online in about a minute.
Common questions
Why does Lovable store images separately?
It keeps projects small and fast to edit, and lets Lovable serve images from its own content network. The side effect is that an export is not fully self-contained.
Does this affect the favicon or icons?
Usually not. Files in the public folder, such as favicon.ico, are part of the code and export normally. It affects images uploaded or generated inside the Lovable editor.