In short: Before you switch from legacy customer accounts to new customer accounts, check five things: (1) custom changes in your theme, (2) the fields you collect at sign-up, (3) whether you use Multipass or SSO, (4) what you tell existing customers, and (5) your switch date and the 30-day revert period.
Key points
- Custom login pages and sign-up forms built in a modal or on a separate page may need to be removed before the upgrade
- For the fields you collect at sign-up, add names, addresses, and similar details to the sign-up form as Shopify fields, and birthdays and similar details as customer metafields
- Liquid account pages can't be used with new customer accounts. Existing Multipass integrations keep working after the upgrade
- Existing customers don't need to sign up again. Let them know they'll log in with a verification code from their next login
- You can go back within 30 days. Before the upgrade, try new customer accounts using the URL in the URL field in the Shopify admin
Check 1: Does your theme have custom changes?
If you want to keep any customizations you made to the legacy customer account templates or .liquid code, rebuild them before the upgrade. Shopify's upgrade guide asks you to review and note down customizations such as links to subscription management.
Check these two places:
- Theme editor: Go to Online Store > Customize on your current theme > the Home page drop-down > Legacy customer accounts, and check each template (customer account, customer login, customer register, and so on)
- Code: Go to Online Store > the … next to your current theme > Edit code > templates > customers in the left sidebar, and check the code of each template
After the upgrade, legacy customer account URLs (such as /account/login), including hard-coded links in your theme, automatically redirect to new customer accounts. If you've built your own login or sign-up pages in a modal or on a separate page, you may need to remove them from your theme before the upgrade. Replace the customizations you rebuild with apps that support customer accounts. Howdy provides a block that lets customers edit customer metafields on the account page, and a banner image block.
Sources: Shopify Help Center: "Upgrading to customer accounts from legacy customer accounts" / Howdy Help: "④ [Initial setup] Profile Page" / Shopify App Store: "Howdy: New Customer Accounts Sign-Up Form"
Check 2: What fields do you collect at sign-up?
The standard features of new customer accounts don't include a sign-up form. When someone logs in with a new email address, a customer profile is created automatically. To keep collecting the fields your current sign-up form collects, add input fields with a sign-up form app.
| Example field | Where it's stored in new customer accounts | How Howdy handles it |
|---|---|---|
| Name, phone number, address | Shopify customer information (standard fields) | Add an input field with the option to add a Shopify field |
| Birthday | Customer metafield (type: Date) | Add an input field with the option to add a custom field |
| Terms of service consent | Customer metafield (type: True or false) | Make it a required checkbox with a link to the terms page |
| Preferences and other information chosen from set options | Customer metafield (type: List of single line text) | Let customers choose from a drop-down |
| Newsletter subscription | Shopify email marketing subscription setting | Collect it with a checkbox in the form |
Before you add customer metafields to the sign-up form, create them in the Shopify admin under Settings > Metafields and metaobjects > Customers. Our dedicated team creates customer metafields and sets up the form fields for you for free.
The setup steps are in How to add a sign-up form to new customer accounts (Howdy).
Sources: Shopify Help Center: "Customer accounts" / Howdy Help: "① [Preparation] How to set up customer metafields" / "How to set up address input" (Japanese) / "How to set up terms of service with a link" (Japanese) / Shopify App Store: "Howdy: New Customer Accounts Sign-Up Form"
Check 3: Do you use Multipass or SSO?
If your Shopify Plus store already uses Multipass, your existing integration keeps working after the upgrade, and you don't need to do anything. If the Multipass setting doesn't appear in the admin after the upgrade, contact Shopify Support.
- To log customers in from your own system, Shopify Plus stores can connect an external identity provider (your own authentication system)
- On other plans, use email with a verification code, Shop, or Google/Facebook login
If customers log in through an external identity provider, they can't change their email address from their account, so check this as well.
Sources: Shopify Help Center: "Upgrading to customer accounts from legacy customer accounts" / "Customer accounts"
Check 4: How will you tell existing customers?
Existing customers' order history, profiles, and addresses carry over to new customer accounts as they are. What changes is how they log in and the account page screens. From their next login, instead of a password, they enter a 6-digit verification code sent to their email address.
Include these three facts in your announcement:
- When they enter their email address on the login page, a verification code is sent to them by email
- They no longer need a password, and there's no more password reset process
- Their order history and shipping addresses are still available
If you also want to collect extra details such as birthdays from existing customers, switch Howdy's New Customer Detection to use a customer tag. Customers without the tag see the form at their next login. Once they complete the form, the tag is added and the form no longer appears from then on.
Sources: Shopify Help Center: "Customer accounts" / "Upgrading to customer accounts from legacy customer accounts" / Howdy Help: "How to show the login form to existing customers with New Customer Detection" (Japanese)
Check 5: When are your switch date and revert deadline?
Upgrade after you test new customer accounts. Within 30 days of the upgrade, you can go back to legacy customer accounts. Even if you publish your configuration in Settings > Checkout, login links in your store and checkout keep pointing to legacy customer accounts until you upgrade.
Here's the flow of steps 8 and 9 in Shopify's upgrade guide:
- In the Shopify admin, go to Settings > Customer accounts, copy the URL in the URL field, and open it in a new browser tab
- Log in with a test customer account and try every sign-in option you offer, such as verification code emails and social login
- When you're ready for customers to use new customer accounts, click Upgrade in the banner at the top of the Settings > Customer accounts page
If you've set up a subdomain for customer accounts, the URL is in the format account.{your store domain}. If you haven't, it's in the format https://shopify.com/{store ID}/account.
Source: Shopify Help Center: "Upgrading to customer accounts from legacy customer accounts"
Related articles
- Shopify new customer accounts in 2026: a step-by-step guide from review to setup and migration
- What happens to your theme customizations when you move to new customer accounts?
Frequently asked questions
Questions about new customer accounts? Ask us anytime.
Ask us about the steps for switching from legacy customer accounts. Howdy's dedicated team creates customer metafields, sets up sign-up form fields, and places blocks on the profile page for free.
