Locksmith
Install LocksmithContact us
  • Quick Start
  • πŸ’‘Basics
    • A Locksmith Overview
    • Creating locks
    • Creating keys
    • Compatibility with other apps and Shopify features
    • Removing Locksmith
  • πŸ”†Tutorials
    • Approving customer registrations
    • Creating restricted wholesale products
    • Hiding product prices and/or the add to cart button
    • Selling digital content on Shopify
    • More tutorials...
      • Setting up multiple price tiers
      • Customizing messages
      • Customizing the customer login page
      • Customizing the registration form
      • Customizing the passcode form
      • Customizing Locksmith’s "Access denied content" messages, and redirecting customers
      • Customizing the email list signup form
      • Showing multiple prompts on the same page
      • Showing content only to specific Markets
      • Input lists
      • Protecting against bots
      • Earn recurring revenue on your exclusive content using ReCharge
      • Use Locksmith and PayWhirl together to grant access based on subscriptions
      • Liquid locking basics
      • Restricting checkout from the cart
      • Confirmation key condition
      • Restricting customers to a specific collection
      • Passcode-specific redirects
      • Grow your subscriber lists with Klaviyo
      • Use Klaviyo as an access control list
      • Use Mailchimp to collect customer emails
      • Hiding out-of-stock products
      • How to use a private browsing session
      • Granting access to variants by visitor input
      • Offering different variants by postal code
      • Locking products by tag
      • Locking multiple pages at once
      • Making a product accessible exclusively from the direct product link
      • Creating private team areas
      • Importing customers in bulk
      • Disabling Locksmith for certain theme files
      • Adding translations to your Locksmith messages
      • Redirecting using Locksmith
      • Locking variants
        • Limiting the scope of variant locks using the product tag key condition
        • Handling JavaScript DOM errors caused by variant locks
      • Locking the customer registration form
      • Locking the search results page in your store
      • How to clear cache for a single website
      • Disabling Locksmith for certain theme files
      • πŸ› οΈManual mode
      • Grant access for a limited time when using passcodes or secret links
      • Testing Locksmith on unpublished themes
      • Locking blog posts
      • How to access your browser's dev tools
      • Restricting the cart for mixed products and combinations of products
      • Locking products by vendor
      • How do I hide my Shopify store's header and footer
      • Hiding navigation links for locked resources
      • Hiding products from product-grids
      • Restricting a product so that it can only be purchased by new customers
      • Automatically managing the seo.hidden metafield using Locksmith
      • Locking the home page
      • Setting up checkout validation with Locksmith
      • How to hide theme sections, blocks, and snippets
  • πŸ”‘Keys: Access methods in Locksmith
    • About key conditions
    • Customer account keys
    • Passcode keys
    • Secret link keys
    • Visitor location keys
    • More about keys...
      • Inverting conditions in Locksmith
      • Combining key conditions
      • "Has purchased..." key
      • Using the "Force open other locks" setting
      • Liquid key basics
      • Manual mode
      • Excluding content from locks
      • IP address keys
      • Newsletter keys
      • Limiting the scope of variant locks using the product tag key condition
  • 🌻FAQs
    • Why aren't my locks working?
    • FAQ: I see blank spaces in my collections and/or searches when locking
    • Can Locksmith hide content from my in-store search?
    • Locksmith is not working with my page builder app
    • What should I do if my site is loading slowly?
    • I'm the administrator of my site and I cannot access pages because of Locksmith locks.
    • More FAQs...
      • I'm having trouble using Locksmith with a site speed optimization app.
      • The app isn't loading. What do I do?
      • Can Locksmith protect shipping methods, billing methods, or coupon codes?
      • I switched themes, and Locksmith isn't working
      • Why isn't my passcode, secret link, newsletter, or location key working?
      • Can Locksmith lock Shopify's public JSON API for my online store?
      • Why are my customers seeing a reCAPTCHA when logging in?
      • My passcode or newsletter prompt is not updating on my store when I change it.
      • My featured collections on my home page only show one product.
      • My infinite scrolling doesn't show all of my products.
      • My customers have to enter their e-mail address into the Mailchimp key every time they visit.
      • How do I know which customers have used a certain key?
      • Why is Locksmith adding information to my orders?
      • Locksmith isn't installing correctly!
      • Locksmith is not uninstalling correctly!
      • How does Locksmith affect search engines and SEO?
      • How do I change where customers are redirected to after registration on Shopify
      • The thing I want to lock isn't showing up in the Locksmith search
      • I am getting an "already taken" error when trying to create a metafield definition for seo.hidden
      • How do I add a hero banner image to Locksmith's access messages
  • πŸ“’Policies
    • Usage agreement
    • Locksmith's pricing policy: Pay what feels good
    • Privacy policy
    • Data policy
    • Contact us
  • πŸ”¦Developer Tools
    • Locksmith Admin API
    • Locksmith Storefront API
    • Locksmith variables
    • Unsupported functionality
    • Requests from Locksmith
  • More developer docs...
    • Using the Admin API with Locks
  • App Integrations
    • Easy Appointment Booking
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  1. Tutorials
  2. More tutorials...

Grant access for a limited time when using passcodes or secret links

How to use Locksmith's 'timeout' feature to limit access time

PreviousManual modeNextTesting Locksmith on unpublished themes

Last updated 2 years ago

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This feature is available only when using "" or "" key conditions. In specific, the following key conditions types: Permit if the customer...

  • gives the passcode

  • gives one of many passcodes

  • gives a passcode from an input list

  • arrives via a secret link

  • arrives using a secret link from an input list

The setup is pretty straightforward. You'll see the corresponding option, when setting up one of the above key condition types, and can adjust the time period like so:

Caveats

1. Using this setting with the "Remember for signed-in customers"

Since most folks using the timeout setting are wanting to heavily limit their customers' access period, we typically recommend that anyone using the timeout setting makes sure to turn the "Remember for signed-in customers" setting OFF. While the two settings can technically be used together, doing this can provide you the most consistent results.

That being said, if, for any reason, you have set a longer access period (months, years), it may actually make more sense to keep the "Remember for signed-in customers" setting turned on. This will help Locksmith maintain access (via customer metafields) for the full period of time, as long as the customer is signed in.

2. Access time is evaluated at time of page load

As stated under the option itself, Locksmith won't refresh the page for the visitors, so visitors' access period will only time out when they load or refresh a page.

3. The setting won't apply retroactively

When adding this setting to an already-existing key condition, it will only be applied to new visitors. As in, it will not apply retroactively.

If you do want to reset access for all visitors, the easiest way to do this is to delete your key condition( press the "Remove" button on the condition) and recreate it with a different passcode or secret link.

4. Every time a visitor uses the same passcode or secret link, the timeout timer for that particular passcode/link is reset

In other words, the timer is always based on the most recent Locksmith submission/validation. If a customer resubmits a passcode or re-uses a secret link, the timer starts from then, even if that code/link was already used.

To prevent this kind of thing, you can set up your codes/links so that they have limited uses (or even one use only). Check out the corresponding guides for more information on how to do that:

5. When using the timeout feature, do not use the same passcodes or secret links as you are using in your key conditions that do not time out

Using the same passcodes or secret links for key conditions that time out, as those that do not time out will result in none of your key conditions timing out as expected.

6. On rare occasions, page caching may prevent visitors access from timing out

It is possible for pages in your online store to be cached based on Shopify features and Theme settings. This may prevent the page from timing out exactly when expected. Because of this, the setting should be considered to be simply an extra tool in your toolbox, and not depended on to be exact and precise.

πŸ”†
Secret links
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