Tidemark: Backup & Restore

How to restore a deleted product in Shopify

Deleted a product by mistake? Here's what Shopify can and can't do about it, how to rebuild the product by hand, and how to make the next mistake easy to undo.

The short answer: Shopify can't restore it

When you delete a product, Shopify removes it for good. Its Help Center says it plainly: deleted products can't be restored. There's no trash to dig it out of, so without a backup you'll have to rebuild it.

Rebuild it by hand

There are three places to rebuild it from, depending on what you have.

• An old product export. If you exported your products to a CSV file before the product was deleted, its rows are still in that file. Keep the header row and the product's own rows, delete the rest, then go to Products, click Import and choose the file. If the image links in the file no longer work, add the images again by hand.
• Past orders. Orders keep a copy of what was sold. Open an order that included the product to find its title, variant names, SKU and price, then add the product again under Products.
• Anywhere else it's listed. If you also sell the product on a marketplace or in a second store, copy its title, description and photos from there.

Give the rebuilt product the same URL handle it had before, so links to it from search results, emails and ads keep working.

Next time: archive instead of deleting

If you want to stop showing a product but keep it, archive it instead of deleting it, as Shopify suggests. An archived product moves to the Archived tab under Products, and you can unarchive it whenever you like. It comes back as a draft, ready to check and make active again.

With Tidemark: restore it from the recycle bin

Tidemark saves every change to your products within seconds, so the product as it was just before it was deleted is already backed up. Open the recycle bin in Tidemark, find the product and restore it. It comes back with its images and collections.

Tidemark can only restore what it saved, so it needs to be installed before the product is deleted. Deleted products stay in the recycle bin for the length of history your plan keeps.

Tidemark is coming soon to the Shopify App Store. See what else it can undo.