Recover abandoned checkouts

Before you start

Shopify counts a checkout as abandoned when a customer has entered an email address but has not finished paying, and the checkout stays incomplete for more than ten minutes after that¹. The items in the cart are not saved after the checkout is abandoned¹.

Keep these limits in mind:

• Recovery works only for the Online Store and Buy Button sales channels. Checkouts from Shopify POS, Shop or third-party channels do not get recovery emails^1,2.
• Abandoned checkouts older than three months are deleted automatically, and you cannot delete a single one by hand. To keep one, create a draft order with the same details¹.
• Shopify's pages on this feature do not say which plans include it. For Shopify B2B, abandoned checkouts are off by default, and the store or organization owner must contact Shopify Support to turn them on¹.
• Recovery emails are now set up in the Shopify Messaging app. An older abandoned checkout email in Settings > Checkout keeps working until Shopify removes it. Switching to the new automation is permanent; you cannot go back to the legacy email².

Steps

1. Open the abandoned checkouts list. From your Shopify admin, go to Orders > Abandoned checkouts¹. Each row shows the customer, an Email status and a Recovery status¹. Checkouts that Shopify Payments blocked as high risk appear in the Blocked view¹.

2. Read why a payment failed. Click a checkout, then open Timeline on its details page. Click a payment event to expand it and read the Message field. It tells you what to pass on to the customer, such as a declined card¹.

3. Open the recovery automation. Go to Apps > Messaging > Automations¹. If you already have the Abandoned checkout emails by Shopify automation, click its actions menu (...) > Edit settings¹. If you are setting it up for the first time, click View templates, select the Abandoned checkout template, and click Turn on automation > Continue². Your earlier legacy settings carry over when you switch².

4. Turn on automatic sending. In the Abandoned checkout emails section, select Send abandoned checkout emails automatically¹.

5. Choose who receives the email. Under Send to, pick the recipients¹. By default only customers subscribed to email marketing get the email; you can choose All customers to include everyone².

6. Set the wait time. Under Send after, choose how long Shopify waits before sending, then click Save¹. The wait time and workflow run in Shopify Flow; you can change them from the automation with Edit and then Turn on workflow².

7. Edit the email. Click Customize email, or select the automation and click Edit > Edit email > Continue^1,2. You can change the To, Subject, Preview text and From fields, and use the section editor to change text, logo and colors or add a discount². Click Save.

8. Send a recovery link by hand when needed. Go to Orders > Abandoned checkouts and click the checkout's number. Click the customer's email address under the customer information, and your email program opens with the recovery link¹. Send it only to that customer. Anyone with the link can continue the checkout, and you cannot turn a link off after you send it¹.

9. Recreate checkouts you cannot recover by email. If Shopify Payments blocked a payment as high risk and you know the customer, create a draft order and send them an invoice¹. If a third-party gateway captured the payment but Shopify did not record it, recreate the order as a draft order, mark it as paid, then fulfill it¹.

10. Find shoppers who abandoned a checkout. To see these customers as a group, build a customer segment with the condition abandoned_checkout_date IS NOT NULL³. The guide to customer segments on this site walks through the segment editor.

Check your work

• Open Orders > Abandoned checkouts a day after you turn the automation on and look at the Email status column. Hover over the tooltip on any email that was not delivered to see why¹.
• Go to Automations > Marketing automation, select the automation, then open Workflow > View recent activity and click a Run ID to see the result of each send².
• Open the Abandoned checkouts emails report by Shopify in the Growth section of your reports. It shows sessions, completed orders, conversion rate, sales, average order value and first-time customers¹.
• A checkout counts as recovered once the customer completes the order, whether through the link or on their own².

Common problems

• "Some abandoned checkouts never got an email." Shopify does not send one when the customer bought before the send time, a payment processing error occurred, you do not ship to the customer's address, the customer entered a phone number instead of an email, no products are available, the order is free with no shipping fee, or Shopify Payments blocked the payment as high risk¹. With the default settings, customers who are not subscribed to email marketing are also skipped, and no email goes out while a newer abandoned checkout's wait time has not passed².
• "Checkouts from my POS or marketplace channel are missing." Recovery covers only the Online Store and Buy Button channels¹.
• "I see checkouts that look like bots." Shopify filters most card testing and bot checkouts, but some can still appear in the list¹.
• "A customer paid, but I only see an abandoned checkout." With a third-party payment gateway, this can happen when the customer leaves before returning to the store, the return URL is wrong or the confirmation does not reach Shopify. Recreate the order as a draft order and mark it as paid¹.
• "I want the old email back." Once you turn on the new automation, you cannot return to the legacy abandoned checkout email².

Further reading

• Abandoned checkouts, Shopify Help Center¹
• Migrating to the new abandoned checkout automation, Shopify Help Center²