Shopify script tags stop running on March 1, 2027: how to check your apps

Since October 1, 2026, Shopify apps can't create or update script tags. The script tags already on your store keep running until March 1, 2027, when Shopify stops adding them to storefront pages. Both dates are in Shopify's developer changelog and its guide to storefront script tags. The Shopify details below come from those two pages unless another link says otherwise, and we read them on October 14, 2026.

A script tag lets an app load its JavaScript on your storefront without changing your theme code. Shopify's stated reason for removing them is that they run without showing up in the theme editor, which makes them hard for merchants to find and control. That is also why checking your own store takes some work.

What stops working on March 1, 2027

From March 1, a script tag no longer loads, and any feature that depends on it stops working for that store. What that looks like depends on what the script did. Shopify's guide sorts script tags into two jobs: loading JavaScript that runs on storefront pages, including scripts that add content to a page, and tracking analytics, conversions or customer behavior. If a script of the first kind stops, whatever it put on the page is gone. If one of the second kind stops, so does the tracking.

Script tag records left on a store after that date have no effect, so there is nothing to clean up afterwards.

This is separate from the Thank you and Order status page upgrade

Script tags on the Order status page had their own, earlier schedule. They stopped running there on August 28, 2025 for Plus stores and on August 26, 2026 for everyone else. August 26 was also the deadline for stores not on Plus to upgrade their Thank you and Order status pages, the change that made merchants replace their Additional scripts.

The March 2027 date covers script tags on the rest of your online store. Finishing the Thank you and Order status upgrade doesn't take care of it.

Finding the apps that still use script tags

The audit Shopify describes is an API query that each app runs to list its own script tags. Shopify had also planned a banner to warn merchants who install an app that uses script tags, and its guide says it decided not to show that banner for now. So the dependable answer comes from each app's developer.

You can still work out who to ask first. Write down every app that shows something on your storefront or tracks visitors there, then look for each one in two places:

1. The theme editor for your published theme. Apps built on theme app extensions appear there, either as app blocks placed in a section or under the App embeds icon in the sidebar, each with its own on and off toggle.
2. Settings > Customer events. Shopify only lists an app there if it uses Shopify's web pixel API.

An app that works on your storefront but appears in neither place is loading its code some other way, such as a script tag or code added to your theme files. Ask those apps first.

Then ask the others. An app that shows up in the theme editor can still have its old script tag running. Shopify tells developers not to delete a script tag until the merchant has switched on its replacement, so for a while a store can have both.

Two kinds of app have no extension to move to. Custom apps created directly in the Shopify admin can't use theme app extensions or web pixels. If someone built one for you, they need to move the script into your theme or build a replacement. Shopify notes the cost of the first option: a script in theme code stays there after the app is gone, and editing theme code takes the theme off its automatic upgrade path. And if a service ever had you create an app in your admin and paste its access token into their dashboard, Shopify says that service needs to release a real app that uses a theme app extension or a web pixel.

Six questions for each developer

1. Does your app have a script tag on my store? The developer can check with the query Shopify provides for this.
2. What replaces it, and is the replacement released? Shopify points developers to an app embed block for scripts that run on storefront pages and to a web pixel for scripts that only collect data. It told them to release the replacement before October 1, 2026, because from that date an app can't create a script tag on a store that installs it. If you install the app now and the replacement isn't out, the app arrives without the features its script tag used to provide.
3. Do I need to switch anything on? An app embed stays off until you turn it on in the theme editor, and the app can't turn it on for you. The developer can send a deep link that opens the theme editor with the embed on, and you still have to save. A web pixel needs nothing in the theme editor, but you approve its permissions when you install or update the app.
4. When will you delete the old script tag? Until it's gone, the old script and its replacement both load. Shopify warns that this can double-count analytics events or show the app's interface twice.
5. What happens if I publish a different theme? An app embed is only on for the theme where you turned it on. If you publish another theme, such as a holiday theme for Black Friday, turn the embed on there as well.
6. If a tracking script is moving to a web pixel, will my numbers change? Web pixels run in a sandbox. Shopify's Help Center says the sandbox can't automatically detect page scrolling, or clicks and mouse movement for heatmaps, and that in markets that require consent, a pixel runs only after the visitor grants the permissions it needs.

What Maxproof uses

We make Maxproof, a shoppable video app, and it has no script tags to migrate. Its video widgets are app blocks that you add to your theme in the theme editor. Sales attribution comes from a web pixel, listed under Settings > Customer events. The app doesn't request the permission to create script tags, and its code doesn't call the script tag API, so March 1 changes nothing on a store that runs it.

Question 5 applies to us too. App blocks belong to a theme, so if you publish a different theme, add the blocks to it in the theme editor. App blocks also need a theme that supports them, which Shopify's guide says means a theme with JSON templates.