Step-by-Step Guide: How to Update Your Shopify Theme Without Losing Customization
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Updating your Shopify theme is essential for accessing new features, improving performance, and maintaining compatibility with Shopify updates. Here’s how to update your theme while preserving your customizations:
Step 1: Backup your Shopify theme
Backing up your theme is the first thing that needs to be done.
Navigate to your Shopify Admin tab.
Go to your online store and access the Themes tab.
Click on Actions, followed by Duplicate.
Download the theme to have it as a backup.
Step 2: Upload Shopify theme zip file of newer version. Once this has been done, you can start with the upgrade process.
Step 3: Customize your upgraded theme
The updated theme has no customizations and will not resemble your shop. So, you need to either customize it from scratch or copy the theme’s settings code from your current theme and add it to the new version.
We will be discussing how to copy your old theme’s settings as it is the easier method to use.
Copy your old theme’s settings
You need to copy following JSON files in code editor
Any other custom template you need to copy and paste corresponding json file.
Theme settings (settings_data.json)
Go to your Shopify Theme Settings.
Select Action, followed by Edit Code.
Scroll down to where it says Config.
Select Settings_data.json.
Copy the entire code (it is quite long).
Paste on the latest version of your theme.
Go to your Shopify Theme Settings.
Select Action, followed by Edit Code.
Scroll down to where it says Config.
Select Settings_data.json.
Paste the code under Settings_data.json on the latest version of your theme.
Test the latest version of the theme and make sure everything is functioning correctly.
Copy your old theme’s Header settings
In the code editor search ‘header-group’
Select header-group.json.
Copy the entire code (it is quite long).
Paste on the latest version of your theme.
In the code editor search ‘header-group’
Select header-group.json.
Copy the entire code (it is quite long).
Select entire code and paste the code under header-group.json on the latest version of your theme.
Copy your old theme’s Home page settings
Go to your Shopify Theme Settings.
Select Action, followed by Edit Code.
Scroll down to where it says Templates.
Select Index.json.
Copy the entire code (it is quite long).
Paste on the latest version of your theme.
Go to your Shopify Theme Settings.
Select Action, followed by Edit Code.
Scroll down to where it says Templates.
Select Index.json.
Paste the code under Index.json on the latest version of your theme.
Test the latest version of the theme and make sure everything is functioning correctly.
Copy your old theme’s Footer settings
In the code editor search ‘footer-group’
Select footer-group.json.
Copy the entire code.
Paste on the latest version of your theme.
In the code editor search ‘header-group’
Select footer-group.json.
Select entire code and paste the code under footer-group.json on the latest version of your theme.
Copy your old theme’s Product page settings
In Code editor search for product.json
Select product.json.
Copy the entire code (it is quite long).
Paste on the latest version of your theme.
In the latest theme code editor search for product.json
Select product.json.
Paste the code under product.json on the latest version of your theme.
Step 4: Test that your newly updated Shopify theme works
The next step is to thoroughly test the latest version of the theme and make sure everything is functioning correctly.
Test the theme and go through everything to make sure that it works.
Publish your theme and enjoy the update.
Copy your old theme’s Home page settings
Go to your Shopify Theme Settings.
Select Action, followed by Edit Code.
Scroll down to where it says Templates.
Select Index.json.
Copy the entire code (it is quite long).
Paste on the latest version of your theme.
Go to your Shopify Theme Settings.
Select Action, followed by Edit Code.
Scroll down to where it says Templates.
Select Index.json.
Paste the code under Index.json on the latest version of your theme.
Test the latest version of the theme and make sure everything is functioning correctly.
Copy your old theme’s Product page settings
Go to your Shopify Theme Settings.
Select Action, followed by Edit Code.
Scroll down to where it says Templates.
Select Product.json.
Copy the entire code (it is quite long).
Paste on the latest version of your theme.
Go to your Shopify Theme Settings.
Select Action, followed by Edit Code.
Scroll down to where it says Templates.
Select Product.json.
Paste the code under Product.json on the latest version of your theme.
Step 4: Repeat above steps for any other custom template you need to copy and paste corresponding json file.
Step 5: Test that your newly updated Shopify theme works
The next step is to thoroughly test the latest version of the theme and make sure everything is functioning correctly.
Test the theme and go through everything to make sure that it works.
Publish your theme and enjoy the update.
