How to Add or Remove Products from Shopify Collections
To edit the products in a Shopify collection, go to Products > Collections, open the collection and add or remove products, or change the conditions that add products automatically. How you do it depends on whether your store uses Shopify’s newer collections model, with sources, conditions and exclusions, or the legacy manual and smart collections.
Keeping collections accurate helps shoppers find the right products and stops sold-out or off-season items from cluttering your store. This guide covers adding and removing products, editing conditions, making changes in bulk and fixing common issues.
How to Edit Products in a Shopify Collection
Products can enter a collection in two ways: you add them by hand, or they match conditions you set. The method you use to edit a product depends on how it got there.
Add products manually
Adding products by hand works well for curated collections, such as gift guides or staff picks. Follow these steps on desktop:
- Go to Products > Collections and click the collection.
- In the products source, click Add products.
- Search for and select the products you want.
- Click Add, then click Save.
In the Shopify mobile app, open the collection, tap Add, then Products, choose your products and save. Products you add manually stay in the collection until you remove them.
Remove products
You can remove a manually added product from its product details page. Open the product, hover over the collection name in the Collections field, click the x and save.
This only works for products you added by hand. If a product was added because it matches a condition, it stays in the collection until you change the condition, change the product’s details or exclude it.
Edit conditions for automatic products
Conditions add products automatically when they match attributes such as product type, vendor, tag or price. To change which products appear, open the collection and edit its conditions:
- Change a condition. Choose a different product attribute, matching rule or value.
- Add a condition. Combine several conditions and choose whether products must match all of them or any of them.
- Use multiple values. When an attribute allows several options, choose whether products must match all values or any one.
Save the collection and review the product list to confirm the right items appear. Changing a condition can add or remove many products at once, so check the results before promoting the collection.
Exclude products
In the newer collections model, you can also keep products out of a collection even if they match its conditions. Exclusion conditions remove matching products automatically, and you can manually exclude specific products.
Exclusions override inclusions, so an excluded product won’t appear even if another source adds it. You can’t exclude individual products and whole collections in the same source.
New Collections Model vs Legacy Collections
Shopify is replacing manual and smart collections with a new collections model. Where it’s available, existing collections were converted automatically, and stores without it can keep using manual and smart collections. This table shows the main differences:
| Feature | Legacy collections | New collections model |
|---|---|---|
| How products are added | Either by hand in a manual collection or by conditions in a smart collection | Several sources in one collection, combining manual picks and conditions |
| Excluding products | Not available as a separate option | Exclusion conditions and manual exclusions |
| Nested collections | Not supported | Products from other collections can be added as a source |
| Variant-level control | Whole products only | A variants source can include only specific variants |
The new model is available on the Basic plan or higher. If a product is added by more than one source, it appears only once in the collection.
Add or Remove Many Products at Once
Adding products one by one gets slow for large collections. You can select several products at once in the collection’s product picker, and the product list’s bulk actions also let you add selected products to a collection or remove them.
For collections built on conditions, the fastest way to change membership is often to update the product details the conditions use. For example, adding a “summer” tag to 50 products adds them to a collection that includes products tagged “summer,” and removing the tag takes them out again.
If you manage product data across Shopify, WooCommerce or Wix, Bulkflow supports bulk import, export and updates to existing product records with field mapping. That can help when you need to update product details for many items at once.
Change the Order of Products in a Collection
Editing collection products often includes rearranging them. Open the collection and choose a default sort, such as best selling, alphabetical, price or date created, or choose manual sorting to arrange products yourself.
With manual sorting, drag products into place or select products and move them to the beginning, the end or a specific position. Save the collection when you’re done.
Edit Collection Details
Besides products, you can update a collection’s title, description, image, search engine listing, theme template, sales channel publishing and metafields. These details affect how the collection looks to shoppers and in search results.
Collection editing in the Shopify mobile app was redesigned in April 2024 to match the product screens. You can now manage a collection’s details from one screen with fewer taps.
Collection Limits
Shopify sets a few limits on collections that use the newer features. Keep these in mind for large catalogs:
- Up to 5,000 collections can use conditions.
- Up to 50 collections can contain another collection.
- Up to 5 collections can exclude another collection.
- Up to 100 collections can contain manually or automatically added variants.
Common Problems When Editing Collection Products
Many collection issues come from mixing manual products with conditions. Watch for these:
- A product won’t come out of the collection. It was added by a condition, so change the condition, update the product or exclude it.
- A product won’t appear. It doesn’t match the conditions exactly, or an exclusion is removing it.
- You see “You can’t edit this collection.” The collection was created in the mobile app before the new model was available, so only details such as the title, image and SEO can be edited in the admin.
- Too many products appeared after an edit. A condition was broadened, such as switching from match all to match any.
- Products seem to be missing on the storefront. They’re unpublished, out of stock and hidden by your theme, or not available in the shopper’s market.
Conclusion
Knowing how to edit collection products in Shopify keeps your store organized and helps shoppers find what they want. Whether you add products by hand, adjust conditions or use exclusions in the newer collections model, a quick review after each change keeps every collection accurate. We hope this guide helps you edit Shopify collection products with confidence. To update product data in bulk, you can explore Bulkflow.
