Shopify Abandoned Checkout: Why Recovery Emails Don't Send

A Shopify abandoned checkout is a checkout where the customer entered an email address but did not pay within ten minutes. You find them under Orders > Abandoned checkouts, and Shopify emails the customer a link back to their checkout once you switch on recovery emails. If some of those emails never go out, the cause is one of seven situations Shopify lists, and the abandoned checkouts page tells you which one applied.

Rules and paths come from Shopify’s pages on abandoned checkouts and discounts in recovery emails, read October 23, 2026. Shopify labels its main page as describing the legacy abandoned checkout experience; where the new Shopify Messaging automation differs, it is noted below.

Where to find abandoned checkouts

Go to Orders > Abandoned checkouts. A few facts about that list:

• Only Online Store and Buy Button checkouts appear with recovery; Shopify POS and third-party sales channels do not get recovery emails.
• Checkouts that Shopify Payments blocked as high risk sit in a separate Blocked view.
• Some bot and card-testing attempts are filtered out, but not all, so a burst of odd checkouts with made-up emails may still be bots.
• The cart contents at the moment of abandoning are not saved as a cart; the checkout record is what remains.
• Entries older than three months are deleted automatically and cannot be deleted by hand. To keep one, create a draft order with the same details.
• Abandoned checkouts are included when you export orders.

On a B2B store, abandoned checkouts are off by default; the store owner has to ask Shopify Support to turn them on.

Send recovery emails automatically

Recovery email settings now live in the Shopify Messaging app:

1. Go to Apps > Messaging and click Automations.
2. In the Abandoned checkout emails by Shopify automation, open the menu and click Edit settings.
3. Select Send abandoned checkout emails automatically.
4. Under Send to, choose which visitors get the email.
5. Under Send after, choose the delay after the checkout is abandoned.
6. Click Save, then Customize email if you want to change the template.

If you created a Recover abandoned checkout automation from the template list instead, it does the same job with a workflow you can edit. Either way, these emails do not count toward the 10,000 free emails in Shopify Messaging. How this automation relates to the cart and browse reminders is explained in our Shopify abandoned cart guide, and the full list of templates is in Shopify email automation.

Back on Orders > Abandoned checkouts, the Email status column shows whether each email was sent, and Recovery status shows whether the customer came back and paid, through the link or on their own.

Seven reasons a recovery email is not sent

When automatic emails are on, the abandoned checkouts page shows a tooltip on each checkout that did not get an email. The reason is one of these:

1. The customer completed a purchase before the email was due. Nothing to fix; it is a sale.
2. A payment processing error happened at checkout. Open the checkout’s timeline (next section) to see the error, and contact the customer yourself if you know them.
3. You do not ship to the customer’s address. If several checkouts show this for one country, there is demand you are turning away; consider adding that country to a market and a shipping zone.
4. The customer entered a phone number instead of an email. If your checkout allows phone or email, these shoppers cannot get an email. SMS recovery in Shopify Messaging is the route to them.
5. Nothing in the checkout can be bought any more, for example because inventory ran out. Restock or remove the product.
6. Everything in the checkout was free, and the customer never reached a paid shipping step. A free sample or a $0 product, for example.
7. Shopify Payments blocked the payment as high risk. Shopify does not send recovery emails for blocked checkouts. If you know the customer is genuine, send a draft order invoice.

If most of your unsent emails fall under one reason, that reason is worth more of your time than rewriting the email.

Read the payment events

Every time a customer tries to pay, Shopify records a payment event in the abandoned checkout’s Timeline. Open the checkout from Orders > Abandoned checkouts, click a payment event, and read the Message field.

Shopify’s list of reasons includes declined cards, incorrect card numbers, expired cards, wrong security codes, postal codes that do not match the billing address, failed 3-D Secure authentication, inventory that ran out, and discount codes or gift cards that could no longer be used. This is the fastest way to answer a customer who writes “your checkout won’t take my card”: the message gives the reason Shopify recorded.

For Blocked due to high risk of fraud, Shopify Payments re-checks risk on every attempt, so a customer who tries again with different details might succeed. If you use an external payment provider and the provider confirms it captured the payment but Shopify shows an abandoned checkout, recreate it as a draft order and mark it as paid before you fulfill.

Add a discount to the recovery email

A discount in the recovery email arrives as a pre-filled cart at the discounted price, so the customer only enters payment details. Two rules from Shopify:

• If the customer had already typed another code, the recovery code replaces it.
• Shopify does not add any text about the discount; say it in the email yourself.

How you add it depends on which email you use. With the new Shopify Messaging automation, put the code in the email you edit in Messaging. With the legacy template, create the discount code first (avoid special characters in its name), then go to Settings > Notifications, open Abandoned checkout under Orders, and edit the links in Email body (HTML) so the checkout URL ends with your code; Shopify’s Help Center has the exact snippet. Recovered checkouts then open with discount=YOURCODE already applied.

Our view: a discount in every recovery email also goes to shoppers who would have paid full price. Try the email without a code first and compare the recovery rate before adding one.

Send one by hand

You can also send a single checkout link yourself, for example when a customer asks for it. Open the checkout in Orders > Abandoned checkouts and click the customer’s email address; your email program opens with the link in the body. Send it only to that customer: anyone who opens the link can continue the checkout, and the link cannot be expired.

To judge how much the emails bring back, open the Abandoned checkouts emails report by Shopify in the Growth section: sessions, completed orders, conversion rate, sales and the share of first-time customers from recovery emails. If you want a dedicated tool, see our roundup of abandoned checkout recovery apps. The Shopify email marketing hub links the rest of the series.

FAQ

How long does Shopify keep abandoned checkouts? Shopify deletes abandoned checkouts older than three months, and you cannot delete one by hand. Create a draft order with the same details if you want to keep it.

Are abandoned checkout emails free? Abandoned checkout automation emails are always free and do not count toward the 10,000 free emails a month in Shopify Messaging.

Can I see how many checkouts the emails recovered? The Recovery status column on the abandoned checkouts page shows each recovered checkout, and the Abandoned checkouts emails report by Shopify in Growth totals sessions, orders and sales from the emails.