Update a Shopify Theme Without Losing Your Changes
To update a Shopify theme without losing your changes, back up the current theme, apply the update to a separate unpublished copy, move over whatever the update did not carry, test that copy, and only then publish it. Your old theme stays in the theme library, so you can switch back if something breaks. Whether Shopify can update the theme for you or asks you to do it by hand depends on one thing: whether anyone has edited the theme’s code.
The rules below come from Shopify’s Help Center page on updating themes and its developer documentation on theme updates, read on October 31, 2026, the pages on duplicating and downloading themes, read the same day, and the Help Center page on adding themes, read on October 23, 2026.
Automatic or manual: which update you get
Shopify delivers theme updates from the Theme Store in two ways.
| Automatic update | Manual update | |
|---|---|---|
| When it happens | Every theme file is unchanged except settings_data.json and the JSON templates, which store your theme editor choices |
Someone edited other theme files, or the new version changes or removes a setting ID or type, or removes a section or block |
| What Shopify does | Replaces your published theme with the new version | Installs the new version as an unpublished theme in your library; your current theme is not modified |
| What you do | Nothing, beyond checking the storefront | Move your changes, test, publish |
So a theme you changed only through the theme editor (colors, fonts, sections, blocks, text) can update in place. A theme where a developer or an app wrote into the Liquid, CSS or JavaScript files gets the manual path. When a manual update is available, Shopify shows a notification on the Online Store > Themes page.
Two conditions apply before any of this. Updates go only to licensed themes: Shopify’s Help Center says unlicensed themes are not eligible for support or updates. And a paid theme is updated by its developer, so the update arrives when they publish one, not on Shopify’s schedule.
Back up the theme first
Make two kinds of backup before you start, because they protect against different mistakes.
- A copy in the theme library. Shopify’s Help Center describes the library as the place to “test changes to a copy of your published theme”. Under Online Store, click the theme’s Horizontal menu button to open its actions menu and click Duplicate; the copy appears as “Copy Of” plus the theme’s name. The same menu has Download theme file, which emails a
.zipof the theme to your staff login’s address, so a merchant without a developer can keep a copy outside Shopify too. The file holds the theme only: products, collections, menus, pages, blog posts and the images in Content > Files are not in it. Basic, Grow and Advanced stores can hold up to 20 themes and Plus stores up to 100, so remove an old draft first if you are at the limit. - A copy of the code outside Shopify. A developer can download the theme with Shopify CLI (
shopify theme pull) into a folder or a Git repository. This is the copy that lets you see, line by line, what was changed in the code.
The library copy is enough for a store that never touched code. If a developer has worked on the theme, keep the code copy too; you will need it in the next step.
Apply the update and move your changes
With a manual update, click Add to draft themes on the update notice (with View release notes to read first); the new version lands in Draft themes, and your published theme keeps running. The theme card then says whether your code edits were included or could not be. Open the new copy in the theme editor and compare it with the live theme, page by page.
What to expect, based on how Shopify stores a theme:
| Change you made | Where it lives | After a manual update |
|---|---|---|
| Colors, fonts, section order, block settings, text in the theme editor | settings_data.json and the JSON templates |
Shopify’s docs say a setting whose value is no longer valid in the new version is reset to the new default; check each page |
| Custom CSS typed into the theme editor’s custom CSS setting | settings_data.json, as a platform setting kept apart from the theme’s own CSS files |
Check that the selectors it targets still exist, because a theme update can invalidate custom CSS |
| Edits to Liquid, CSS or JavaScript files | The theme files themselves | Shopify’s Help Center says code edits that do not conflict with the update are included in the new copy; conflicting ones are not, and the theme card tells you which happened |
| App blocks and app embeds | Turned on per theme in the theme editor; the code lives in the app | Open App embeds in the editor and confirm every app you use is switched on |
We build Shopify apps, and this last row is why modern apps add themselves through theme app extensions: the app’s code stays in the app, and the theme only records whether the block or embed is on. Older apps sometimes pasted snippets into theme files. Those snippets are code edits like any other: they come across if they do not conflict with the update and stay behind if they do. If the theme card says code edits could not be included, a developer can compare the two versions with the code backup and move what is missing.
For the theme editor side of customization, see customize without code.
Test and publish
Preview the updated copy and click through the pages a customer uses: home page, a collection, a product with variants, the cart, search, a blog post and the contact page. Check them on a phone as well as on a desktop. If someone else should look, Shopify lets you share a preview link for any unpublished theme.
Then publish the new copy. Shopify keeps the previous theme in Draft themes, so rolling back is one publish away. Keep the old version for a few weeks before you delete it; a problem on a rarely visited page, such as a gift card page or an order status page, can take that long to surface. Theme updates belong on a regular schedule, along with the other items in our maintenance checklist. A theme backup does not cover products, orders or customers; for those, see Shopify data backup. Other store routines are in the running a store hub.
Frequently asked questions
Will updating my theme delete my changes? An automatic update replaces the published theme only when its code is untouched, so theme editor changes carry over. A manual update creates a new copy and leaves your old theme in the library; Shopify includes code edits that do not conflict with the update, and resets theme editor settings that the new version no longer supports to the new defaults.
How do I know a theme update exists? Shopify shows a notification on the Online Store > Themes page when a manual update is available for your theme. An automatic update replaces the published theme directly, so the theme developer’s release notes are the place to see what changed.
Can I go back to the old version? Your previous theme stays in Draft themes after you publish the updated one, and you can publish it again at any time.