Locksmith is a simple yet powerful tool to help you make sure the right people see the right things in your Shopify store. In the spirit of the name of our app - ✨ Locksmith ✨ - you'll be using "locks" to determine what content in your store is restricted and using "keys" to denote how, when, and who gets access.

Locks

Locks are created using the search bar within our Locksmith app. You can search for most resources in your store by name. More in depth information on the in-app search bar here:

A lock restricts access to something on your shop.

You can lock:

• Your entire shop

• Pages

• Products

• Collections

After searching, once you select the search result you want to hide and click Save. You'll see some useful options, such as:

• Is the lock currently active?

• Should it also protect the products in this collection? (Disabling this means only the collection page itself will be locked.)

• Should it hide the collection, and it's products, from search results and other lists?

• Should it hide links to this resource from navigation?

You'll see different options depending on what type of resource you’ve locked.

Keys

A key permits access to the locked resource based on your criteria. They are created on the lock page using the "+ Add key" button:

Keys allow you to specify the exact conditions that give your customers access to the locked resource.

• Check out the full list of keys in the dropdown menu on a lock page.

• You can also create your own custom keys with Liquid. Create a custom key by choosing custom Liquid from the keys menu.

More information on creating keys here:

Chaining (Combining) conditions together: OR versus AND

Locksmith gives you flexibility to add multiple keys and logically combine them together to create unique unlock conditions.

OR

• When you set up your key, you can create another key right away, by clicking on Add Another Key. This button allows you to add another separate key to your lock.

• Keys connected by the OR operator can individually open your lock whether or not the conditions on the other keys are met.

This allows you to specify multiple different conditions that a customer can use to access. When used, a customer only needs to meet one of the conditions in order to access.

Notice that there are multiple key symbols, and each key is preceded by "Permit if the customer..." text:

AND

• Adds another condition to the current key. Choose your first key, and click on the "+ add key condition" below the condition. You'll see another selector to add your next condition.

• If you connect key conditions with AND, all of those conditions must be met before the visitor gets access.

Notice that there is only one key symbol for each key, and each condition is inset under the symbol and text:

Inverting Keys

Use the inverse of a key for added flexibility.

• In the key, click the "invert" box in the upper right.

• This creates the opposite effect for the key.

• For example: Permit if the customer is not visiting from the United States. --When used on the Locations key.

Our guide that explains this a bit more is here:

The "force open other locks" setting

If you have created several locks that cover overlapping content (e.g. locked collections with some of the same products inside), you may want to turn ON the "force open other locks" key setting. This setting tells Locksmith to grant access to all of the content covered by the current lock, even if other locks might apply:

Setting up cart/checkout validation

Locksmith has a feature you can use to create a checkout rule that ensures that products tagged with a specific product tag cannot be purchased without a specific customer tag:

Let us know if you have any questions for us! You can contact us via email at [email protected].

Locksmith is a tool for merchants on Shopify to restrict access to the content in the "Online Store" sales channel of their Shopify store. It's a simple tool, and in some cases can be set up in only a few minutes.

To get started, open up Locksmith from your apps list.

You'll be presented with the main page. The "Add new lock" section will be your first stop:

For a more detailed overview of what Locksmith is and how the app works, see our guide linked below:

Create your first lock

To restrict access to something in your store, simply type in the name of a product, collection, page, variant, etc - you'll immediately start seeing search results. Alternatively, select a type from the dropdown to filter your search by resource type. Select the resource that you want, to place a lock on it:

More information on (and help troubleshooting) lock creation here:

Create a key

On the next page, press the "Add key" button to create a key:

Next, add at least one condition to your key. The most commonly-used key conditions will show up first, but you can search or keep scrolling for more options.

Simply select the condition that you want to use. Some conditions may ask you for some additional settings, you'll be prompted if appropriate.

There are over 20 out-of-the-box key conditions, and you can even create custom conditions! You can also combine key conditions in different ways to create unique access scenarios. For more information on that, and the complete list of key conditions, see the page here:

Wait for Locksmith to install to your theme

After you save the lock, Locksmith will usually take about 5-10 seconds to automatically update your theme. A green status bar will briefly show at the bottom of the page - once it is gone, the installation has finished.

You can now navigate to your locked content on your store front, and you should immediately see the restriction is now in place. Locksmith will automatically show the appropriate content, using the styling from your theme, on the page. The access denied content will correspond to the key condition that you used.

So, for example, if you chose a condition requiring a sign-in:

Or, if you chose a passcode-only entry method, you'll see a different prompt:

Each key condition type will have a slightly different landing page, the above two examples are not a complete list. The messages displayed on these pages can be customized as much as you need:

Locksmith uses the idea of locks to restrict access to specific content in your store. You can granularly control which content is restricted by adding a lock to the applicable resource.

Use the search bar within Locksmith to place a lock on any content within your Shopify "Online Store". To use it, search for your resource by name:

What is searchable

Here are the types of resources that you are able to lock (and search for) from within Locksmith:

• Products

• Collections

• Pages:

• Variants:

Specifying a resource type when searching

Locksmith allows you to specify the resource type to search for. This is helpful when you get many results from search term, but they aren't what you're looking for.

Try this syntax in the search bar:

• product:snowboard

• collection:snowboards

• page:about snowboards

• blog:life is snowboarding

What is not searchable

• Product tags: to lock a group of products with the same tag create an , and then lock the collection using Locksmith.

• Third party apps

• Any page that is not located inside of your Online Store

• Menus and menu links: Menu links are not directly searchable, but they can still be hidden from unauthorized access, as long as they point to one of the resource types in the list at the top of this page. In this case, just make sure the option to "Hide any links to this [resource] in your shop’s navigation menus" is turned on (under Settings) for the corresponding lock.

Locking your entire store

Simply click into the search bar:

Once you do that, you'll see "Entire store" show up in the dropdown as an option to lock:

Excluding resources form the store lock

The store lock's settings page has a few options for excluding resources from the store lock, so they remain accessible to everyone. Those options include:

• Allow access to the home page

• Allow access to policy pages

• Allow access to customer areas

For resources that you would like to exclude form the store lock that aren't covered by those lock options, we have guide on excluding content from locks here:

Locking all products in your store

By default, Shopify stores feature an 'All' collection that automatically encompasses all products in the store. Locking this collection offers an efficient method to secure all products in your Shopify store simultaneously, without the need to lock the entire store. This collection can be locked just like any other collection. Search for the collection title 'all', select 'Collection: All' from the list of results, and follow the steps to create your lock.

Still having trouble?

If you are searching for something like a product or a collection (or something else that is definitely searchable), and it just isn't showing up, you may just need to switch up your search terms.

• Try using fewer (but more specific) search terms.

• Keep in mind that pasting in the URL of the item you are trying to search will not work in most cases, you will need to search by name.

• For variants that aren't appearing in search results, try including some information about the variant option. For example: "Color" equals "blue".

Updating Locksmith

If you've created something recently and it's not showing up, an update to Locksmith can help.

1. Open the Locksmith app and navigate to the "Help" page 2. Click on the "Update Locksmith" button:

3. When the blue bar at the bottom of the screen disappears, the update is finished. This should only take a handful of seconds.

A note about Liquid locks

Locksmith also gives you the ability to create "Liquid locks". This can allow you to target nonstandard resources or groups of pages in your store with Locksmith locks that are otherwise not directly searchable. You can start a Liquid lock by clicking into the search bar and selecting "Start a Liquid Lock":

If you think a Liquid lock could help you, try your hand at , or you can always write in to us for any questions about a specific use case.

Our more in depth guide on that is here:

As always, if you have questions or issues please feel free to get in touch with us at [email protected].

In Locksmith, customer access is always granted using keys – simple statements that describe the conditions for access.

For example, one might have a key that says "Permit if the customer is signed in". In this example, the key condition is "if the customer is signed in".

A full list of key conditions can be found in our guide here:

Read on in this section to find out more information about how to set up many of our most popular key condition types.

Locksmith does its work by adding its code to your theme's files. Sometimes you may want to keep Locksmith from modifying a file in particular, whether it's for a customization, or some other reason.

To support this, Locksmith has a "Liquid assets to ignore" option. Configure it like so:

1. From within the Locksmith application, click "Settings".

2. Scroll to the bottom of the screen to the "Advanced" section.

3. For each Liquid asset you'd like to have Locksmith ignore, add its filename to the "Liquid asset blacklist" box.

That will look like this:

Please note: If you need to use the ignore list because Locksmith is causing unexpected problems with your theme, please let us know! Feel free to use the ignore list for any purpose, but do get in touch at if there's a bug we can help resolve. :)

You can use Locksmith with Seal Subscriptions to control access based on a customer’s subscription status. Seal Subscriptions supports auto-tagging customers depending on whether their subscription is active or inactive. Here’s how it works:

How Seal Subscriptions tags customers

• Seal Subscriptions can automatically tag customers when they have an active subscription.

• When a subscription becomes inactive (expired or cancelled), Seal doesn’t remove the active tag. Instead, it applies an additional tag for inactive subscribers.

Reference:

Setting things up in Locksmith

1. Make sure Seal Subscriptions is configured to add both active and inactive tags to your customers.

2. Create a lock on the content you want to restrict (products, collections, pages, etc.). Guide:

3. Add a key condition: Permit if the customer is tagged with... and enter your active subscription tag. This is a regular (non-inverted) condition.

4. Now turn this into a combo key by adding the second condition inside the same key:

Helpful resources

Summary

Because Seal Subscriptions doesn’t remove active tags, you’ll need to use both a regular (non-inverted) condition (active tag) and an inverted condition (inactive tag) in Locksmith. This setup ensures that only customers with a current subscription can access your locked content.

Locksmith allows you to restrict access to any content in your Online store, so it is a great solution for those wanting to add wholesale products that can only be purchased by select customers. Plus, Locksmith works with whatever Shopify plan you're on!

Scenario 1: Selling wholesale and retail in the same store

You can set up your store so that both sides of your business are run out of the same shop.

This is done by creating price tiers in your store. This requires that you create two versions of each of your products in the backend. This can be achieved by either duplicating products, or by using variant tiers.

In-depth setup instructions for this can be found here:

Scenario 2: Creating a wholesale-only store

If your store is going to only be used for wholesale, and you don't need multiple price tiers in the same store, your setup will be more simple.

You can simply create a lock that covers your entire store:

For your key, you have options for how to grant access, but the recommended option here would be to simply use approved customer accounts:

Or, if you prefer not to use customer accounts, and want to grant access with a simple code, try passcodes:

For any browser right click on an element on a page and select "Inspect", then select the relevant tab in the DevTools panel (Ctrl + Shift + I or Command + Option + I)

Open the DevTools into the Console panel

• Google Chrome: Ctrl + Shift + J or Command + Option + J

• Safari: Command + Option + C

• Firefox: Ctrl + Shift + K, or Command + Shift + K

• Microsoft Edge: Ctrl + Shift + J, or Command + Shift + J

Open the DevTools into the Elements panel

• Google Chrome: Ctrl + Shift + C or Command + Option + C

• Safari: Command + Option + I

• Firefox: Ctrl + Shift + C, or Command + Shift + C

• Microsoft Edge: Ctrl + Shift + C, or Command + Shift + C

For more information from the sources, use the following links:

Locksmith isn't supported in combination with site speed optimization apps. It may work with some, but we don't offer support for this combination.

Apps known to be affected

• Nostra

If you run into an app that should be on this list (or if you find one that does seem to work), please let us know: .

Why isn't this supported?

Locksmith's session state is very tightly coupled with the customer's Shopify session state (as managed by the Online Store channel). The two operate hand in hand, and depend on each other.

Site speed apps usually work by caching, or by dynamic injection of content delivered from a non-Shopify source. This introduces a layer between Locksmith's state and Shopify's state, which creates a synchronization problem, and one that we can't sustainably sign up for.

This setting is useful if you have multiple Locksmith locks that cover overlapping content (e.g. collection locks with some of the same products), and want to make sure that each lock grants full access to the content it covers, without other locks preventing access.

To turn on the "Force open other locks" setting, go to each applicable (overlapping) lock and follow these steps:

It is found directly under your keys in the section labelled "Key options":

You'll also notice that the the key shows a message telling you which keys are forcing open other locks.

Option 1 - locking your entire store

Locksmith gives you the ability to lock your entire store, which you can select when creating a new lock:

Once the lock for your entire store is created, you'll see an option labelled "Allow access to the home page". It is unchecked by default - leave it that way to ensure that the home page is locked.

Option 2 - create a lock that ONLY covers the home page

This can be done using a simple custom lock. Choose "Start a Liquid lock" from the list when creating a new lock:

For the "Liquid condition", use template == "index"

Press "Create lock" to finish the lock creation. Make sure to add your keys on the following page like normal.

Mailchimp is a great way to stay in touch with your customers (and it's free!).

Connecting it to your Locksmith account lets you grow your mailing list subscription base, by making sure your visitors' email addresses are on record.

To try it out, use these steps:

Step 1 - Edit your Locksmith message

Start by adding something like the following to one of your Locksmith messages. . You can use whatever keys you like, as long as it's prefixed with locksmith:

Make sure to include the quotes. In the app that looks like this:

Saving a lock with any messages that contain the above formatting will trigger a Locksmith update which will automatically edit (all of) the locale files in your theme so that they include a new editable and translatable attribute. This is an example of what that might look like from within the locale files in your theme:

Locksmith can be used to create separate areas of your store for different teams, clubs, vendors, organizations, or other groups. These areas are intended to be private, only for the eyes of those members. This guide also applies even if there is only a single customer that should gain access to each area.

To summarize, you will create a landing page that you can link all of your customers to, and then use Locksmith to lock down and redirect customers to their own content. The rest of the guide explains, in greater detail, how to do all of this.

With Locksmith, it is simple to lock down a specific collection, so that it can only be viewed by a specific set of customers. However, some merchants want to take it one step further and make sure that those customers can only access their collection, while the rest of the store is restricted to them.

Part 1: Create the collection lock

Add a lock to the collection that you want these customers to access. Use the search bar in Locksmith to search for the collection by name:

Under "Keys", choose how these customers will gain access. You can use whatever method of access you want. The most common way of granting access in this scenario is to use "customer tags" to grant access:

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

This is a straightforward key condition that allows access solely based on if the customer confirms the prompt that you set. Something like the following:

To use, simply choose the key condition labelled "Permit if the customer confirms the prompt":

Set the desired prompt

Common use-cases/examples include:

It's possible to use Locksmith's passcode keys to redirect visitors to specific URLs, based on which passcode they enter. Using this technique, a single page (or other locked resource) can act as a kind of switching station, pointing visitors to the content that's appropriate for them.

To accomplish this, set up multiple passcode keys, each one having a distinct passcode value. Then, for each key, use the triple-dot menu on the right to set a redirect URL, sending the visitor to the appropriate destination when they enter that passcode.

A demonstration:

To get started using Locksmith's Customers area, use the "Customers" button, found in the footer navigation on any page of the app:

There are two options for importing your customers: using a plain list of email addresses, or by loading in a CSV file that you create with your spreadsheet application.

Locksmith can search for and lock products based on the product vendor. A lock can be created for all products from a specific vendor by searching for the name of that vendor in the search bar on the Locksmith app's homepage.

Shopify's product vendors are part of the organization section on a products information page. More on that in the Shopify's guide below:

Vendor locks vs Collection locks

In this tutorial, we'll talk about configuring a Shopify store to...

• Prompt the visitor to enter their postal code upon arrival

• Only display variants that have their "Postal code" option set to equal the postal code that the visitor entered

To do this, we'll use a series of variant locks, and one shop lock. We'll also use passcode key conditions, leveraging the ability to use a single passcode entry to activate many passcode keys at once.

The "Klaviyo member" key condition in Locksmith can check your Klaviyo lists or segments directly, to see if the current visitor should have access, and will grant or deny access accordingly.

To set this up, choose the key condition labelled "if the customer is a member of a Klaviyo list or segment":

Why this is useful

If you are using Locksmith's passcode, secret link, newsletter, or location key-condition types on your Shopify store, Locksmith remembers access of specific visitors via browser cache. Once the lock is open, the locked content will be accessible and will begin to appear in searches and collection view (if applicable) for the rest of the visitor's browser session.

You'll start by locking your product. You can search for it by name in the Locksmith search bar to create that lock.

Next, you'll need to set a key with two different conditions:

• Permit if the customer is signed in, and

Locksmith allows you to present your customers with a form to subscribe to a Klaviyo email list, which the customer must enter before they gain access to the locked content:

Setup

To get started, create a new lock or navigate to the lock you'd like to use, then add the key condition labelled "if the customer subscribes to a Klaviyo list".

Locksmith won't lock by tag using the Locksmith search bar. The good news is that you can make this happen with a .

1. In your Shopify Admin, click on Products then Collections

2. In the upper right, click Create Collection

3. Name your collection something relevant, and then scroll down and click on the "Smart" option for the collection.

4. In the conditions area, choose "Product Tag... is equal to" and then add your product tag into that field:

5. Click Save.

Once that's done, search for your new collection by name in the Locksmith search bar, and lock it that way. You'll likely want to enable the "hide from search and lists" option on that collection lock.

In some cases, you may want your keys to unlock certain parts of the page - like keeping the product price or add-to-cart hidden, until a customer qualifies for one of your keys.

This sort of behavior can be achieved with some custom code, and the "manual mode" setting for the relevant locks. Click the link below to learn more.

Creating the lock

You can add this to any lock type including your entire store, or a lock on a specific product, collection, page, etc. To create a lock on your entire store, for example, choose that from the list:

Locksmith can search for and lock an entire blog, but doesn't search for individual blog posts/articles by default. If you type in "news" (or the title of your blog), you should be able to lock the whole blog, but that'll include every article in there by default.

To lock a specific blog post/article, try tagging it in your "Blog posts" page in the Shopify admin area, and then search for that tag in Locksmith. When you search for the tag, it will display as "articles tagged with...":

For more about how to add tags to blog posts, please visit Shopify's guide, below:

Prerequisites:

This is useful if you have a lock on a collection, but want specific products still available. Or if you have a lock on your "entire store", but want specific pages always accessible.

It's a quick setup: you'll actually create a lock directly on the content that you want to be unlocked. This can be anything such an entire collection, a product, page, blog, etc.

Once you've added the lock, use the key condition labelled "always permit":

Save the lock, and you're done.

The "lock" that you've just created becomes a sort of anti-lock, so the product, collection, etc that you've placed it one will now always be available.

You may need to create multiple locks like this if you have multiple areas of your store that you would like to remain accessible.

At times, you'll want to permit visitors to access a resource if several conditions are met. This can be a method of increasing security: you might, for example, require visitors to arrive at your sale collection via a secret link, but then you'll want them to also provide their personal passcode.

All of Locksmith's key conditions can be combined with all other key conditions. (For the full list, see .) This is powerful! It means you can start to chain pieces of authorization logic together, to achieve really specific results.

Setup

To configure a combination key, begin by creating a standard key using whatever your first condition ought to be. Then, use the "Edit" link (shown next to the condition description). Scroll down to "+ Add key condition". Locksmith will prompt you to add a second condition, which you then configure in exactly the same way as the first.

Locksmith locks your customer facing website so that it can only be accessed under certain circumstances. Some merchants set up more nuanced conditions and Locksmith can get in the way as you navigate your own website.

Locksmith's variant locking feature results in automatic hiding of variants that the visitor doesn't have access to. If you're using keys that are based on things that don't require customer input (say, "permit if the customer is signed in"), then revealing those variants is automatic: if the customer qualifies, the variants appear.

If you're using keys that require visitor input, like passcodes or email addresses, then an intermediate step needs to be added to the customer experience, allowing them to actually enter their information. This doesn't happen automatically, and without it, the visitor won't have a way of accessing the hidden variants.

Setup

By default, Locksmith will only automatically install itself to and update itself on the currently published theme, and does not automatically install itself to unpublished themes. However, there is a way to test Locksmith on unpublished themes.

To test Locksmith on an unpublished theme:

1. Head to the in-app "Themes" page.

By default, Locksmith's apply to all matching option/value combinations. For example, you'll typically see something like this:

Once a variant lock is created, you can limit which products it applies to by using the key condition labelled "If the product is tagged with":

You'll use any existing product tags to denote which products you want the variant lock to apply to, or create new product tags if needed.

If you want the lock to apply to variants on one product tag only, and leave all other products untouched, for example, you'll use an inverted key condition like so:

Then, as a separate key, add in your conditions for access to the product. So if you want to allow access to the variant with a sign in, that will look like this:

Merchants frequently have issues with Locksmith and page building apps such as GemPages or PageFly.

This is a hard area to have full compatibility since those particular apps specialize in letting merchants have full control over the look and feel of the pages. This is a great thing, of course, but it does make it hard for apps such as Locksmith to come in after the fact and also attempt to control the display.

That being said, if you are using Locksmith in a more standard way - i.e. using full-page locks on some of your products or collections, there's still a good chance that you can use both.

If you're not sure, the following points should clear up when not to use the apps together...

To try this out, open up Locksmith, and start typing "registration", like so:

Click on the "Customer Registration" result and then click "Save." Locksmith will create a lock that covers your shop's registration page. From there, feel free to add whatever keys you like!

Because Shopify doesn't provide any way to group pages (in the way that collections work for products), we need to get down to the code level in order to protect more than one page at a time.

To get started, you'll need to begin a "Liquid lock:

Lock all pages containing a certain word:

To lock all pages containing a certain word in the title, fill out the Liquid lock form like so:

Example code for "Liquid condition" from above image:

Submit the form to create your lock, then proceed by configuring keys as appropriate.

Lock all pages that use a certain custom template:

To lock all pages that use a certain custom template, use this:

Example code for "Liquid condition" from above image:

Submit the form to create your lock, then proceed by configuring keys as appropriate.

Lock a list of pages by page handle:

To lock a list of pages based on page handles using one lock:

To list pages handles that you would like to lock, you can do that by listing each handle in the "Liquid prelude" field where the "page_handles" variable is defined (see image below).

You can replace "first-handle,second-handle,third-handle" with your own handles and list additional handles by adding a comma "," between each handle with no spaces.

Liquid condition:

Example code for the "Liquid condition" from above image:

Liquid prelude:

Example code for the "Liquid prelude" from above image:

Submit the form to create your lock, then proceed by configuring keys as appropriate.

Additional notes:

If you'd like to use something other than the title or template to activate this lock, take a look at - you can adapt your custom lock for any of the page attributes listed there.

Related articles

Many merchants that sell collectors items, limited edition items, or other types of highly exclusive items are plagued by bots purchasing their products, and come to Locksmith for help.

Without using a checkout rule, Locksmith is NOT able to prevent bots and other unapproved resellers from purchasing from your store.

This is because direct-to-checkout links, which allow products to be purchased without even visiting the Online Store, exist within the Shopify platform, and it's not possible for apps to get involved with this layer.

While Locksmith itself cannot help here, there is a way you can prevent this from happening without the need for any apps.

The solution: discount codes

So the general strategy here is to set your products up so that the public price is something pretty high - a price high enough so that the bots will ignore it. Then, you'll use to create a discount to bring the price back down to the original price that you'd like to sell at.

Thankfully, Shopify allows you to create discounts that can only be used by specific "customer segments". .

So, for example, you could create a customer segment that's based on a specific customer tag:

And then give the customer segment a description name:

When setting up the discount code, use the "Customer eligibility" section to select the customer segment that can use this discount:

The result of this is that you now have an avenue to make sure that only the customers you designate have a pathway to purchase that is secured all the way to the completion of the sale.

You can absolutely use this strategy without further involvement with any apps, including Locksmith. The customers will simply use the product pages as normal, and enter the discount codes at checkout.

Again, the price they'll see here will be higher than what the customer is most likely expecting, so make sure you do everything you can to communicate with your customers about using the discount code. You can do this in the product description, in customer mailers, or when they contact you (more on that below).

That's it for the basic setup!

How Locksmith can help

Optionally, Locksmith can still help get your product pages to a place that helps direct your non-bot customers to the right place. Locksmith has features that will help hide the price and add-to-cart buttons so that the public facing price doesn't scare customers away that stumble onto your product pages. More information, and set up guide, on hiding the price and add to cart button here:

So basically, when set up correctly, your customers would see something like this when they land on your product pages:

Then, when signed in with an approved account, they will be able to add to cart and purchase.

For questions or help with setup, contact us via email at [email protected]!

This can be useful for merchants that don't need a product to be "secure", but still want to keep customers from finding the product by accident.

Locksmith also has a secret link feature, which is more heavily used and different than what this guide describes. The secret link feature is more secure. If you are looking for that, simply use the key condition labelled "Permit if customer arrives from the secret link" when setting up your key. If not, read on... Use the following steps:

1. Create a lock on the product in question - to do so, open Locksmith app and search for a product by name.

2. On the next page, under Keys, select the "(custom Liquid)" condition

3. Paste template == "product" into the "Liquid condition" box

4. Make sure the "hide this product from search results and other lists" option is checked!

You're done :)

If this technique isn't working, it's possible that your theme uses a non-standard template name (other than "product"). To fix this, just update "product" in the lock to whatever your theme uses.

If you would like more information on Liquid key conditions, checkout the guide linked below.

Something else not covered here?

Let us know by emailing us at: [email protected]

You can use Locksmith alongside a dedicated subscription app to lock content so that the content can only be accessed by active subscribers. This guide covers how to use ReCharge, but it should be noted that any recurring payment service that offers the "auto-tagging" feature would work with Locksmith.

ReCharge Setup:

If you haven't already, install the ReCharge app and use their instructions to set up a recurring subscription for one of your products:

One thing to keep in mind is that even if you aren't offering a subscription to an actual physical product, you can still use ReCharge and just label the subscription product as something like "Exclusive Access" or "Membership".

Recharge will automatically tag customers with "Active Subscriber" if they have an active ReCharge subscription, making the setup very simple. Also note that this tag is removed if the customer ends their subscription.

Locksmith Setup:

The Locksmith side of this is pretty straightforward. Open up the Locksmith app and create a lock by searching for the page, product, collection, etc that you want to limit access to.

Once the lock is created, add the following key:

That's all it takes! Locksmith will now only grant access to accounts tagged with "Active Subscriber", which will only be added to accounts that have an active subscription via ReCharge.

Advanced setup for multiple tiers:

If all of your plans are accessing the same content...

E.g. - you have a monthly, yearly, etc option - no additional setup needed: the same tag will get added to a customer account to matter what plan they have, and customers using all plans will be able to access the content.

If you have multiple plan tiers to access different content, depending on the tier...

E.g. Gold, Silver, Bronze tiers, but the access for each tier is different.

In ReCharge, you'd create a recurring order product for each of your tiers.

In Locksmith, add a lock to the content that is associated with a particular membership level. You will end up with at least one lock for each tier, maybe multiple, depending what content you are locking!

Use the following key:

Make sure to fill out the "Only look at orders in the last..." field with the appropriate subscription length that matches you rReCharge subscription:

If there is any content that can be accessed by more than one type of membership level, just add them both as Locksmith keys:

Feel free to ask questions if you're having any issues with any of that! We can be contacted via email at [email protected].

Related articles:

There are many instances in which it is useful for a key to grant access if the opposite of your key condition is true.

Locksmith makes it easy to invert keys. To do so, simply click the box next to "invert" when you're editing the key:

Notice that when this is done, the wording will update, inverting the key condition logic:

Make sure to "Save" the lock, and you're done!

As always, feel free to contact us via email at [email protected].

Locksmith allows you to hide locked content from lists across your store. This includes hiding products from collections and search result pages - only showing them to visitors that have gained access to the appropriate lock(s). This is turned on in your lock settings on your lock page:

Hide products from the following:

• Searches

• Collections

• Related products

• Featured products

• And more! Any time your theme is showing a list of products, this feature likely has the ability to filter locked products from it - as long as the list is not displayed by a third party app.

Other resource types

Although less commonly needed, you can also turn this feature on for page, blog, and article locks. In these cases, if your theme has a way to display "all pages", or "all blogs", for example, Locksmith can remove these from from those types of displays as well.

Limitations

• Using third party apps that take over the display of your collections or searches will likely prevent Locksmith from hiding products correctly. Most filtering/search/display apps are not compatible with hiding products via Locksmith.

• Hiding a large number of products this way can introduce blank spaces to your collections. .

• While this setting is capable of hiding products from the search results page, it cannot always remove products from search results that are fetched dynamically (i.e. shows results as you type).

For more specific information regarding how locksmith works with your in-store search, including some troubleshooting steps, see our guide here:

Locksmith supports hiding locked products across your shop, preventing them from appearing to unauthorized customers in collection listings, search results, and anywhere else product lists appear.

However, if a collection has some products which are locked, and some that aren't, the result can be a collection with empty or partially-empty pages. This is because Shopify only permits filtering products out of a collection page by page - there's no way to reshuffle products so that every page appears full.

There are, however, some other options to get around this issue.

Option 1: Turn up the maximum number of products that are displayed per page

The maximum products per page, Shopify-wide, is 50. This may not work for everyone, but it can make pages appear less empty. And, if you have less than the maximum products in your collection, this can eliminate the issue completely in those cases.

Option 2: Don't mix locked products and unlocked products in the same collections

Simple enough. To make sure that each customer type gets pointed to the right collections, follow these steps.

1. Create versions of each collection that are geared toward each audience. For example, if you have a "Staff" collection that has some manager-only products, create one "Staff" collection with just non-manager products, and another "Staff" collection with all the manager-friendly products.

2. Next, add links to all versions to your shop's navigation menus. We'll take care of filtering the links themselves in the next step, but for now, make sure your shop's navigation gives your visitors a way to get to the collection that's right for them.

3. Finally, lock each collection, making sure to check the box labeled "Hide any links to this collection and its products in my shop's navigation menus". This will instruct Locksmith to only show a collection link to the visitor if they're qualified to open its lock.

Option 3: Use an app to create "infinite scroll" pages on your store

We've seen that some infinite scroll features and apps can handle reordering, or "filtering down" the products on the collection page, removing the empty spots where the locked products would normally show.

Handling the "All" collection

Shopify generates a default collection called "All", located at the /collections/all url of your shop. Out of the box, this collection contains your entire product catalog.

Because this collection is subject to the same conditions that are described above, it may be useful to override this collection with one that just contains the products in your shop that are public friendly.

To do that, simply create a new collection in your shop called "All", and manually specify the products (either individually or using conditions) that should be visible to the public. This will override the default collection, and visitors who open it will see normal, full collection pages, containing your public-friendly products.

Handling "Frontpage" collections, and other theme-specific product areas

Some themes include the ability to feature a collection of products on the frontpage, or elsewhere. Most themes don't support swapping collections based on the visitor, so it will require custom code to use audience-specific collections in these cases. This kind of thing would only work with specific key types such as customer tags or e-mail addresses.

Feel free to get in touch if you have questions about any of this! You can do that by just hitting the message icon on the bottom right of this screen ↘️

When testing Locksmith configurations, it's frequently useful to open a private browsing session, thus guaranteeing that neither Locksmith nor Shopify will remember any of your previous activity, giving you a clean slate to test with.

All major web browsers support private browsing. Here's how to start a session, in each browser:

• Google Chrome: File → New Incognito Window (Ctrl+Shift+N, or Command+Shift+N)

• Safari: File → New Private Window (Command+Shift+N)

• Firefox: File → New Private Window (Ctrl+Shift+P, or Command+Shift+P)

• Microsoft Edge: File → New InPrivate Window (Ctrl+Shift+N, or Command+Shift+N)

For more information, from the sources, on how to use "private session" (sometimes called an incognito window), use the following links:

Shopify provides merchants with the seo.hidden metafield that, when added to your resources, does the following:

• Removes it from sitemaps

• Prevents search engines from indexing (via the "noindex, nofollow" metatag)

• Removes it from the customer-facing search within your Online Store (with some exceptions, depending on theme or apps used and how they treat the "seo.hidden" metafield)

More complete information about the seo.hidden metafield, directly from Shopify, .

Locksmith will automatically add this metafield if you turn on the 'Hide from sitemaps' in your lock settings (found under Advanced):

Locksmith will remove this metafield if you:

• Disable the lock

• Delete the lock

• Disable the "Hide from sitemaps" setting

• Press the Disable Locksmith button from the Settings tab

This setting is available for locks on the following resource types:

• Products

• Collections

• Blogs

• Pages

Caveats

• This setting can be convenient to remove locked products from all storefront searches, but just keep in mind that products covered by this setting won't show up in storefront search at all, even for customers that have access. If this is an issue for you, stick to whenever possible.

• Products in more that one locked collection: if you have the "Hide from sitemaps" setting turned on for more than one collection lock, products will retain the metafield as long as at least one locked collection with this setting turned on remains.

Alternative setting: Add the "noindex" meta tag to any pages protected by this lock

The add-noindex-metatag setting for Locksmith locks adds a "noindex" to the page during rendering, which signals to search engines that you don't want that particular page indexed. This setting is turned on by default since the vast majority of merchants want their locked pages kept out of search engines.

Keep in mind that turning this setting OFF does not result in your locked content being indexed or available. It simply results in the locked version of the page (i.e. "This content is protected....) being available for indexing.

This setting overlaps with the hide-from-sitemaps setting. This setting does not add any metafields to your Shopify resources, but since the seo.hidden metafield already results in the "noindex" meta-tag being added to the resource page by Shopify, the add-noindex-metatag setting is automatically toggled on when you turn on the hide-from-sitemaps setting.

Related

You can use Locksmith alongside a dedicated subscription app to lock content so that the content can only be accessed by active subscribers. This guide covers how to use PayWhirl, but any recurring payment service that offers the "auto-tagging" feature would work with Locksmith.

Note: This guide covers recurring subscriptions. If you want to grant access based on a single purchase, that is a built-in Locksmith feature, no third party app required. More info on that here.

PayWhirl Setup:

If you haven't already, install the PayWhirl app and use their instructions to set up a recurring subscription for one of your products. Start by creating a product on your store, and then linking it to a subscription through PayWhirl. You can find the full setup instructions here:

Important: You'll need to configure PayWhirl to tag customers who subscribe. To do this, click on the Workflows tab in PayWhirl, and then click on "Create customer tagging":

Next, click on "Tag active subscribers", and then "Create and activate workflow". Your setup should look something like this on the Workflows screen when you're done:

Locksmith Setup:

Open up the Locksmith app and create a lock by searching for the page, product, collection, etc that you want to limit access to.

Once the lock is created, add the following key:

Here's a refresher on how to create keys:

That's all it takes! Locksmith will now only grant access to accounts tagged with "Active Subscriber", which will be added to accounts that have an active subscription via PayWhirl. Based on the Workflow settings you set up already, the tag will be removed when the customer cancels or is otherwise unsubscribed. As a result, they'll also automatically lose access to the locked content.

Advanced setup for multiple tiers:

If all of your plans are accessing the same content...

E.g. - you have a monthly, yearly, etc option - no additional setup needed: the same tag will get added to a customer account to matter what plan they have, and customers using all plans will be able to access the content.

If you have multiple plan tiers to access different content, depending on the tier...

E.g. Gold, Silver, Bronze tiers, but the access for each tier is different.

In PayWhirl, you'd create a recurring order product for each of your tiers.

In Locksmith, add a lock to the content that is associated with a particular membership level. You will end up with at least one lock for each tier, maybe multiple, depending what content you are locking!

Use the following key:

Make sure to fill out the "Only look at orders in the last..." field with the appropriate subscription length that matches your PayWhirl subscription:

If there is any content that can be accessed by more than one type of membership level, just add them both as Locksmith keys:

Feel free to ask questions if you're having any issues with any of that! We can be contacted via email at [email protected].

Locksmith can be used to show different content depending on what Market a customer is visiting.

The first step is to divide up the content in your store. If you already know what products or collections you want to show or hide in different Markets, then you do not need to create extra collections here.

Since the goal for merchants here is typically to just to show a different product offering to different markets, you'll want to create collections that each contain the products that you'd like to display for each market. Keep in mind that you can use Shopify's automated collection feature to make this easier. Once your collections are created, it's simply a matter of adding a lock to them in Locksmith:

Once the lock is created, you'll need to create the correct Locksmith "Key". Markets are typically set up by either creating subdomains on your store, or by creating subfolders. Depending on which one of those you are using, you'll need to set up Locksmith a bit differently...

When using subdomains

This will usually look something like www.my-store.eu, or ca.my-store.com, where the subdomain of the URL represents a different region that you're selling to. In this case, simply use Locksmith's "domain" key condition:

When setting this up, Locksmith will automatically show you suggestions for which domain to use, based on the domain settings for your store.

When using locale + country subfolders

This will usually look something like www.my-store.com/en-us or www.my-store.com/fr-ca. In this case, your key conditions will look slightly different. Start by selecting the :

Next, you'll add in something like the following as the "Liquid condition", making sure to edit the last part to match the subfolder you are wanting to grant access to:

{% ifrequest.locale.root_url == "/en-us" %}

Note that only the bolded part needs to be entered, as the rest is included automatically.

You'll end up with something like this:

If you want to set up a key condition for your primary domain, use "/" as your root_url. In specifically: {% ifrequest.locale.root_url == "/" %}

Using the "localization" object

Similar to the above, you can also use the Liquid localization object in your custom key condition. This is useful if you don't use subfolders. Shopify's documentation on the localization object is here: .

Your condition will look something like the following - where "CA" is the ISO code for Canada: {% iflocalization.country.iso_code == "CA" %}

A list of country ISO codes can be found here:

Many of Locksmith's key conditions use the customer account system that comes by default with all Shopify stores to check for specific customer attributes before granting access. These are detailed below.

When these key conditions are used, Locksmith will ask that a customer signs in first, whenever a customer tries to access the locked content in your store. Locksmith does so by automatically displaying the login template from your theme:

Some of the options available to you include checking if the customer...

• is signed in This condition requires all customers to log in. Once they're logged in, they'll be granted access to the locked resource.

• is tagged with… This condition first requires all visitors to log in with a customer account. Once the customer has logged into their account, they'll be granted access if their customer account has the tag you've chosen in Locksmith. (When inverted: unless the customer is tagged with..., or is not signed in)

• has placed at least x orders

Inverting key conditions

Don't forget that all key conditions can be inverted! Which just means that Locksmith will check for the opposite of the original condition. More info on that here:

Liquid key conditions

If the list above does not include the exact customer attribute that you are wanting to check, you have the flexibility to use . This is done by using a "custom Liquid" key condition.

Most notably, this would allow you to use customer metafields in order to grant access. More complete information on custom liquid key conditions - including setup guide - here:

More information related to customer accounts

Here are a few more links to guides that you might find useful as you set up Locksmith to work with your customer account system:

As always, please feel free to reach out to us directly via email at [email protected] if you have any questions!

If you've been using Locksmith to protect your shop, uninstallation means two things:

1. Removing Locksmith from your theme

2. Removing Locksmith from your Shopify apps list

The order is important! Locksmith is NOT able to clean up its code from your theme after you remove it from your apps list (and neither can Locksmith staff), so it's critical to have Locksmith remove itself from your theme before removing the app from your list.

1. Removing Locksmith from your theme

1. To start, open the Locksmith app from within Shopify.

2. Click on the "Help" link under "Locksmith" from the Shopify admin navigation menu.

3. Click the red "Remove Locksmith" button.

After clicking this, you'll see a status bar at the bottom of the screen, which is Locksmith letting you know that it's syncing your settings with Shopify. When this status bar goes away, the removal has completed - it should only take a handful of seconds. Wait for this to complete before continuing.

2. Removing Locksmith from your Shopify apps list

Delete Locksmith from your apps list in the standard way. Namely, from your Shopify admin, go to Apps > App and Sales Channel Settings > Locksmith > Delete.

.

Cancelling your Locksmith subscription

If you have decided to NOT delete the Locksmith app from your apps lists, as outlined above, please make sure to cancel your subscription manually, to avoid being charged unexpectedly:

The best way to hide out-of-stock products is to create a automated collection containing these products, which is then protected with Locksmith.

For more automation options around out-of-stock products, see Mechanic's "out of stock" task library.

1. Create an "out-of-stock" collection

In the "Collections" area of the Shopify admin, create a new collection. Under "Collection type", select the "Automated" option, and configure its conditions such that products match an inventory stock level of less than 1. Save the collection. The result: a collection that only contains products that have been sold out.

2. Lock the collection

Open up Locksmith, and use the "New lock" form on its homepage to search for your new collection, using the collection title that you specified earlier.

Click on the matching collection, and follow the steps to save its new lock.

On the next screen, update the lock's settings so that "Hide this collection and its products" is enabled.

Save your settings. You're done! The result: this collection, and its products (representing all out-of-stock products in your store) are now fully hidden from visitors.

Locksmith includes a checkbox inside of the "Settings" area, on lock pages, that will remove products and other resources from searches - but only from the default and static searches in your store.

You'll find the hide-from-lists setting on each of your lock pages, like so:

Suggestions for third-party or dynamic searches

Using the above Locksmith setting to 'hide from search results' will not remove the search results when a third party or dynamic search is enabled in your store, so we have some suggestions for alternatives.

Dynamic searches(show results as you type) enabled from within the theme settings

The only option here, if you want to make sure that your locked content is never displayed inside of your in-store search, is to disable the dynamic loading of the products. Each theme is different, but this is typically done within the "search" settings for the theme.

Once you open the Theme Editor, you can find it under your "Search" settings. On the Debut theme, for example, go to:

• Theme Settings > Search > Enable product suggestions (turn OFF)

Third party searches:

Locksmith won’t be able to hide your products from a search in this case, since the third party app is completely responsible for displaying search results when enabled. Suggestions:

• Many third party apps have their own ways to prevent products from showing up in them. Check the settings for the app that you're using! At the very least, they should allow you to remove certain products entirely from appearing in searches, using a specific product tag.

The "Hide from sitemaps..." setting

For product and collection locks, Locksmith also gives you the option to hide from sitemaps:

Behind the scenes, this setting uses , which removes products from any in-store searches, but also works to remove products from search engines like Google.

On collection locks, as long as the 'protect products in this collection' option is enabled, the setting will also be applied to each product in the collection.

Related topics

Locksmith enforces variant locks at the Liquid level, which can result in a different set of DOM elements being present than the theme expects. For example, a list of product images might be filtered down to omit images belonging to protected variants; this could result in a DOM error when the theme tries to address an image that Locksmith has prevented from appearing.

Finding a solution

Solving this kind of problem usually involves some trial and error, all centered around making the theme's JavaScript more tolerant of elements being unexpectedly missing.

1. Start by locating the specific line of JavaScript that's raising the error.

   • All error messages come with a filename. Match this filename to the relevant JavaScript asset in your Online Store theme.

   • Look for line numbers at the end of the filename: theme.js:73 could mean that the error came from line 73 from that file.

Locksmith allows you to hide navigation links that point to locked resources - only showing them to visitors with access to your locks. This is turned on via the settings on your lock page:

You'll find this option on locks for the following resource types:

• Product

• Collection

• Page

• Blog

• Liquid locks

Limitations

• Using third party apps to create your navigation will likely prevent Locksmith from being able to correctly hide your navigation links.

• Locksmith is generally not able to hide navigation menu links that are a part of a mega menu, whether via third party apps or a theme setting. These generally rely on AJAX/Javascript, which Locksmith cannot filter.

• Locksmith is not able to hide empty navigation links that don't point to any resource.

Having issues with links not getting hidden?

The way you add in the links when creating your navigation menus may affect Locksmith's ability to remove links in your menus.

Specifically, it's important that you search for and select the resource directly and that you do NOT simply paste/type in the link. Selecting the resource directly means that there is a liquid resource associated with it, and Locksmith can more consistently detect the correct lock status that way. From the Online Store > Navigation area in your Shopify admin, It should look something like this when setting up:

Related articles

Locksmith allows you to integrate directly with either Mailchimp or Klaviyo. When setup, Locksmith will ask customers for an email address when they arrive on a locked page. Once the email is entered, a customer is immediately granted access, and Locksmith will automatically send the subscription information to the corresponding service.

Mailchimp

Detailed information on how to setup Mailchimp can be found here:

Klaviyo

If using Klaviyo, you have the option to simply request that visitors subscribe in order to gain access:

Or, you can also use Klaviyo to grant access only to those who are already subscribed to a specific list in your Klaviyo account:

Using your default Shopify mailing list

Shopify ships out of the box with a marketing mailing list service. If you would like to use Locksmith to grant access to those who have already subscribed to this, you can do so using a custom Liquid key condition.

This is slightly different than the above options, in that it will only grant access to a signed in customers - if the customer is already subscribed! To start, check out our guide on this here:

The condition you're looking for is:

{% if customer.accepts_marketing %}

When set up, this will present the customer will the regular prompt to sign in (as opposed to the subscription prompt):

If desired, you can adjust your message prompt to direct your customers to the page footer(in most stores) to subscribe to your newsletter. More information on editing messages here:

Using other mail services

Locksmith does not support other mail services at this time.

However, if you have a mail service that automatically tags customers that are subscribed, you can use Locksmith to check for a customer tag:

Please feel free to contact us via email at [email protected] if you have any questions!

Related pages:

You tested out your key, and it worked great. But now it stopped asking for verification. This can often happen when using one of these key types:

• Passcode

• IP Address

For background, Locksmith remembers your previous access using the same mechanism Shopify uses to remember you: via browser cache.

The easiest way to move forward is by opening a private browsing session (sometimes called "incognito mode"), and then proceeding to test Locksmith in your online storefront.

Detailed information on using private/incognito mode here:

Locksmith is remembering your browser.

When you open the key, Locksmith remembers it as long as your browser application remains running. To get around this, you'll need to use a private session (see above), or use a different browser or device.

In the case of location keys, if you're using a VPN to change your apparent location, it can even be useful to delete the browser cache during the same browser session. We have a guide on how to do this here:

Locksmith is remembering your account.

If you were signed into a customer account when you opened the key, Locksmith can remember access on that account. This is a toggle-able setting on those key condition types, and, when turned on, Locksmith will never ask again when you're signed in.

To turn this setting off, head into the lock and click on the link to the key condition. Next, scroll down in the pop up and disable the option "Remember for signed in customer":

Toggle the setting OFF, and don't forget to save your lock!

You can use Locksmith to only grant access to your content to registered customers that you approve.

Most of the messages that Locksmith shows to your customers on the front end of your store are completely customizable!

You can edit the text itself as much as you need, plus you can add code, just like you would a template in your theme. That means you can use the following:

• HTML

• CSS (via the <style> tag)

This applies to Klaviyo and Mailchimp key condition types - the setup instructions for which are linked below:

The Locksmith can be used to lock most resources in your store, preventing their content from appearing between the header and footer of the site. However, Locksmith doesn't have a built in way to lock or hide the header and footer in your theme.

It's worth noting that some locks have an option that can be used to conditionally hide specific menu navigation links for locked resources. More on that in our guide below:

Custom options

Locksmith can be used to restrict checkout from the cart page by creating a lock for the cart. This lock can be used to hide the whole cart page, or to only lock the checkout buttons on the cart page. Locksmith has a few cart specific key conditions that can be used to check specific attributes of a customers' cart. This guide will primarily focus on the use of the “has a certain product in their cart” key condition.

To get started, search for "search" from within Locksmith, like so:

... and click on the "Search" search result. (So much searching!)

That's it! :)

Protecting search forms, using Liquid code

Out of the box, this lock only protects the /search url of your shop (as in ).

Manage pricing and other options by creating multiple variants, and use Locksmith to manage access.

In addition to managing access to your products and collections, Locksmith can protect individual variants within your product listings.

New to product variants? Learn more here:

This is a powerful feature! It can allow you to tune your product listings in a way that previously required elaborate coding, or deep manual integration with other apps.

With variant locking, you can:

• ... set up wholesale pricing on your existing products without creating duplicate products, then ensure that only your wholesalers can view those prices.

First thing to try: Update Locksmith

Is your Locksmith installation synced up with your current theme? When changing around themes, Locksmith needs to be re-installed each time you do this. To initiate a new theme install on your currently published theme, press the "Update Locksmith" button on the "Help" page:

If your online storefront is showing poor performance after installing Locksmith or adjusting Locksmith settings, it's possible that an unintentionally aggressive Locksmith configuration is to blame.

Start by using the following troubleshooting steps:

1. Temporarily disable Locksmith

This will help you figure out if Locksmith is actually causing your issue. If your site is still performing poorly after disabling Locksmith, it's probable that the issue lies elsewhere, and you will need to continue your search for the culprit outside of Locksmith.

Disabling Locksmith is done from with the

Many of Locksmith's access conditions require input from your customers, whether that be a login, or just a code entry or a confirm button press. Sometimes you might wish to give your customers flexibility by providing multiple different ways for a customer to gain access. For example, perhaps they can enter a passcode OR subscribe to your mailing list. Setting that up would look something like this:

By default, Locksmith only shows one entry method at a time to customers. In the above example, you'd see something like this:

Editing messages to show both forms

If you have special content that you want to monetize, and it lives in your Shopify store, Locksmith allows you to sell access to it via in-store purchases.

Step 1: Create your restricted content

Common choices for this are to add your restricted content to one of the following:

• . Keep in mind that you are not restricted to a single blog, so you can have a general access blog for your site news, etc, and still use a restricted blog for your digital content.

• .

• Product page - You can build custom product templates that also house your restricted content and combine it with , so that the restricted portion only reveals itself after the product has been purchased. This option has a less straightforward setup, but is still available if desired. If this is you, the best place to start is by contacting us via email at [email protected].

Again, for best results, your content should live in your online store. However, there are some other options that might apply to you:

Secure file viewing or downloading

This requires another provider, and we recommend Dropbox: .

Secure video viewing

You can embed the videos to be viewed just like any of your other content. However, if you want to secure this process, you'll need to enlist the help of a third party video viewing service. We recommend private and unlisted videos on Vimeo, but keep in mind that making your videos private/unlisted on Vimeo requires a paid Vimeo plan! .

Other general content that doesn't live in Shopify

If your content must live elsewhere, consider using iframes to embed your content into a Shopify page, which you can then lock. This is more of an advanced technique and would require someone familiar with code. Locksmith support won't be able to code this kind of thing for you. This is also less secure because the original source of the iframe can't be locked by Locksmith.

Step 2: Create your "access product"

Requiring a simple one time purchase

You'll need to have at least one product that is clearly marked as the product that customers will purchase, in order to gain access to the locked content. Something like this:

Requiring a recurring subscription charge for access

You'll need to use a third party app to set up the subscription service. We recommend ReCharge or PayWhirl, and we have in-depth guides for those here:

Step 3: Setting up the lock

on your subscription product (the one created in the previous step). For your key, use the condition labelled "has purchased..." to create a key condition that permits access if the customer has purchased the appropriate product:

Step 4: Making sure your customers are signed in when purchasing your "access product"

In order for Locksmith to register that a customer has actually purchased your "access product", it is important that you require that customers are actually signed in when the purchase is made.

You can do that with either of the following ways:

Make customer accounts required for your entire store: This means that everyone must be signed into your store when they check out. . This might be considered overkill for some merchants, so if that's the case, use the next option.

Use Locksmith to require that a customer is signed in when purchasing your "access product": Pretty simple - just add a lock directly to the "access product" and use "Permit if customer is signed in" as the key condition. You can by editing the "Guest message content" message to let the customer know that they need to sign in before access. Or, if you prefer, you can even if you just want to hide the add-to-cart button instead of the whole page.

Optional: Directing customers to your content after purchase

You may wish to direct customers to the content that they just purchased.

... in order confirmation emails

We can use some custom code to conditionally add a link to your locked content if the customer has purchased the right product.

To set this up: head to Settings -> Notifications in your Shopify admin, then select "Customer notifications" and click the link for "Order confirmation". To edit the code for this email, you'll need to click the "Edit code" button in the top right of the page. Insert this code and adjust as needed:

Feel free to add multiple copies of this code, if you need to send the customer to one of several pages.

... and in the order confirmation page, after checkout

The code above can also be modified to suit the order confirmation screen that your customers see, right after completing an order.

To set this up, locate the "Additional content and scripts" box, near the end of the Settings -> Checkout area in your Shopify admin.

Use this code:

... adjusting the "Some Product" for your actual product title, and "/pages/some-locked-page" part for the address to your locked content.

Feel free to add multiple copies of this code, if you need to send the customer to one of several pages.

Use Case: Defer access to the restricted product until some time after the required product is purchased.

Let's say you want to grant access based on the purchase, but not immediately. You can grant access later using two conditions in your key. For example, this key will grant access 12 weeks (84 days) after the purchase of the Starter Pack:

Notice the "unless" in the first condition. That's the result of using the option. :)

First thing to know is that Locksmith uses the built in customer account system that comes with your store! This means it doesn't create a separate registration form, sign-in form, or customer database.

All Shopify themes come with a registration form that includes Name, E-mail, and Password fields.

Many merchants want to collect more information from a customer when they register. Although Locksmith doesn't get involved directly with this process, you do have options here.

1. Simply request that your customers e-mail you the information

This is a simple solution to the issue and does work for some merchants. Use the Locksmith access-denied "Messages" area, which you can customize in the app, to let your customers know the contact email.

2. Use a dedicated Shopify app

lets you create unique registration forms and add fields in an easy way. You can enable account approval, auto-tag customers, and receive email notifications when customers create or update their accounts. The Customer Fields app is not created by us, but we have had merchants have a lot of success with it!

Pros:

• Extremely easy to set up

• Install forms nearly anywhere on your storefront (no coding required)

• Choose whether to automatically create customer accounts in Shopify or require admin approval before an account is created

• Create unique forms for different customer groups, or use conditional logic to show/hide fields for different users on one form

Cons:

• It is, naturally, a paid app

3. Use a third party form-creating service

If you just need to collect information, and don't need to automatically do anything with it, it is always an option to use Google forms, Wufoo, or other online forms. There are some other great services out there that let you create a fully customized HTML form.

Pros:

• Free

• Can be used to create a second registration to be used by some of your customers while leaving your regular registration form alone. (These accounts will still be funneled back to the same customer database.)

• You can get notified by e-mail when the form is filled out!

Cons:

• The accounts are not automatically created which means you'll need to manually move the information over to Shopify from the third party app

Legacy Option 4: Edit the registration form in your theme directly

If you are using Shopify's Legacy account system with a Legacy theme, your theme will have a built-in registration form which you can edit as needed. Shopify has a guide that will walk you through doing this. You can .

Pros:

• Editing your own theme is free

Cons:

• Requires coding knowledge. (But, If you don't have coding knowledge, you can still !)

• Extra fields in the registration form end up as customer "notes". Saving unique customer data to the customer note doesn’t allow much flexibility for using that data, or segmenting customers accordingly.

• Changes the registration form for everyone which means that your different types of customers(I.e. wholesale and retail, if applicable) would be using the same registration form. You can still make the form usable for everyone by making the extra fields optional.

Locksmith works in and around the online storefront theme layer – an arena shared by many, many other apps. Locksmith's interoperability is excellent; its internal Liquid engine is very good at injecting its code in the right places, without causing issues for themes or apps. Because of this, in the vast majority of cases, you won't need to worry about Locksmith's compatibility.

Having said that, there are a few places where there are specific points of compatibility or incompatibility.

Locksmith and the Shop App

We're pleased to announce that Locksmith is now compatible with the Shop app. Shopify has updated its policies to allow stores using Locksmith to remain eligible for the Shop app, provided all other Shop app eligibility requirements are met.

Shopify's policies prohibit the use of password control and age verification apps, such as Advanced Registration, B2B Login Access Management, Login to View Price, and MagicPass Wholesale, for stores wishing to use the Shop app. However, Locksmith is now explicitly listed as an exception to this rule.

When you use Locksmith to lock certain products, your store will still remain eligible to display on Shop, and your locked products will not be included in your Shop Store. This ensures that merchants can maintain the control Locksmith provides while remaining eligible for the Shop app.

For more details on Shop app eligibility requirements, including prohibited product types or other restrictions, please refer to Shopify's . Variant Locks and the Shop App

Locksmith’s variant-level locks don’t automatically remove locked variants from the Shop app, as the app manages visibility at the product level. While Locksmith adds a metafield to exclude locked products or collections from the Shop app, Shopify doesn’t support sales channel visibility controls for individual variants.

If a product includes locked variants, the Shop app will flag it with a warning (“This product is hidden by a third-party app”) and prevent it from being listed.

Workaround for Variant Visibility on the Shop App To keep unlocked variants available while hiding locked ones, you can create duplicate products:

• One product with only unlocked variants, published to the Shop app.

• Another product with locked variants, excluded from the Shop app.

This solution offers greater control but may increase inventory management complexity. For guidance on using duplicate products, refer to our tutorial on . You can also explore .

Officially unsupported apps

The following apps have known compatibility issues with Locksmith - although they may work in some cases, with the correct settings.

• Any other access control apps that work in a similar way to Locksmith will almost certainly not work well alongside Locksmith, as they tend to inject code into the same areas of your theme.

• - but only when using and features.

• Any app that controls price at the variant level - but only when using and features.

Other areas of incompatibility

• Predictive searches - Locksmith generally cannot remove products from searches that dynamically show search results as you type. This includes built-in theme searches, and most apps that add predictive searches to your theme. That being said, it is possible to manage the appearance of specific products in store searches using product metafields: .

• - Apps are pretty heavily limited in their ability to make changes to the checkout area, for security reasons. This means that Locksmith cannot restrict access to payment methods, shipping methods, shipping addresses, or anything else that is shown during the checkout process. If you wish to use Locksmith to restrict customers ability to check out,

  you now have two options:

By default, when you create a lock on a resource in your Shopify store, Locksmith prevents access to the direct URL for that resource only. For most locks, you can also toggle hiding for:

• Navigation menu links. More information here.

• Search results. More information here.

• For products: product and collection grids/lists. More information here.

If you are wanting to hiding anything beyond the above, or just want more granular control over what is hidden, you can use our "theme hiding profile" feature.

1. Accessing theme hiding profiles

Because each theme is different, hiding profiles are added per theme. So, this feature is accessed via the Themes tab. Once there, press the "Edit theme hiding profile" button.

2. Adding a hiding definition

A hiding definition hides a section, block, or snippet in your theme. One of the most common use-cases for this is to hide prices and/or add-to-cart buttons. To add hiding definitions for this use-case, use these steps:

1. Press the "Add new definition" button

2. Leave the "Selection method" at the default (Add by name)

3. In the "Name..." box, type in "price". Locksmith will show you all of sections, blocks, or snippets that have price in the name:

1. Add each of the desired definitions. You'll need to repeat the search for each one.

2. Repeat the above 4 steps for every type that you want to hide. E.g. "quantity", "buy", etc. If you are hiding price and buy buttons, you will likely end up with something like this:

3. What to use for "Liquid variable"

"Liquid variable" is how you specify which Liquid object in the theme Locksmith should base the hiding on. Most use-cases for this feature are geared towards products and most of the time, theme developers simply use product. However, there are some exceptions. A "card product" file might assign to a variable called card_product, or a "featured product" file might use featured_product. If you are not locking a product, you'll want to use the applicable variable (collection, cart, blog, shop, etc).

Ultimately, what you put here depends on what is used in the theme, and if you want to ensure that this is right, it will be necessary to open up your theme code editor to check what is used there.

4. How "Replace" works

If the "Replace" checkbox is toggled on, instead of just hiding the content, Locksmith will replace it with the access denied message or access prompt. These messages can be customized in your locks. .

Login to purchase button

For conditions requiring a customer login, the following is used as the default replacement to render a "Login to purchase" button that links to the login page. If you wish to customize the appearance of the button, you can copy/paste this code to your "Guest message content" and edit it as needed. It differs slightly depending on if you're using legacy customer accounts or standard.

Standard customer accounts:

Legacy customer accounts:

Passcode button

If you are using a passcode key and need to render a passcode prompt button, use the following code (the button classes may need to be edited):

5. Save and test!

Once you've added all of your hiding definitions, save your hiding profile. Locksmith will perform an installation to the theme. Once the installation finishes, make sure to verify that everything is working as expected on the frontend of your store! Make sure you have the setting checked to "Enable manual locking" before testing:

How is this different from Locksmith's standard "manual locking"

Hiding profiles are intended to work alongside - or in many cases as a replacement for manually adding code for . Hiding profiles function in almost the exact same way on the backend. Some differences are:

• Hiding profiles are easier to setup.

• Hiding profiles don't need manual removal from your theme, they remove themselves when Locksmith is disabled/uninstalled.

• Hiding profiles rely on the modularity of Online Store 2.0 themes, so adding code manually will still be necessary for legacy or highly customized themes.

• If the hiding target is not contained within a section, block, or snippet, manual locking will still be necessary.

Locksmith can help you restrict access by automatically detecting the location of the IP address of a visitor. The location condition supports many type of locations including:

• Regions (eg: North America, Asia, Antarctica)

• Countries (eg: Australia, Germany, Nauru)

• Provinces/States (eg: Texas, Nova Scotia, Sikkim)

• Cities (eg: Montreal, Chicago, Tokyo)

• Towns (eg: Český Krumlov, Santa Maddalena)

Giving access to locations

Once you've created your lock, choose the Location key:

Next, in the key configuration box, search for the location:

Click the name of the area to add it to the key. Feel free to add additional locations:

Save the key, and you're all set. Those locations will be given access to your locked content, but everyone else around the world won't.

Hiding FROM locations

To make sure some locations don't see your locked content, you'll use the same method.

Add your location(s) to the key like normal, but this time click the "invert" box in the lower left of the key box:

The result here is that customers around the world can get access to your locked content, all except for those in that location.

SEO Limitations

It is important to know that content protected under these key types will not be indexed properly, when used normally. This will strongly effect your SEO for any pages that are covered by these locks. This is because of Google's rules against cloaking. That is to say - we are not allowed to show different content to a search engine vs a regular visitor, as per Google regulations.

If you are using Location or IP address keys, and you still want your content to be indexed, you still have options!

If you have specific products that are not available in certain countries: You'll need to use manual locking to hide only the add-to-cart button. .

If you have different versions for different countries: You can create separate versions of your products using variants, and setting up Locksmith to hide the variants depending on who is visiting. .

Shipping Address Limitations

Locksmith can only protect the frontend of your Online Store, and cannot extend its protections to Checkout. So, this does not prevent customers who have IP addresses located in an allowed location from choosing a specific shipping address that is in a blocked location at checkout. Locksmith is not able to control shipping destinations during checkout. For this, .

Testing the location key:

When testing, the browser may cache your access and continue showing you the same version of that page. So, to test the location key you'll want to:

1. Connect to a VPN for a specific location.

2. Open up a new private browsing session (sometimes called 'incognito mode').

3. Visit the locked collection/page/product etc. using the private browsing session.

4. Close all of your private browsing windows when you're done testing a single location.

5. Repeat the steps 1-4 for each new location.

You'll want to make sure you use a brand new private browsing session each time you test a location, as Locksmith uses the same mechanism as the browser and Shopify to remember previously stored access.

Out of the box, when a Locksmith lock is activated on a specific page, Locksmith will block acess to the main content of the page (i.e. everything in between the header and footer). The main content will then be replaced by Locksmith's access denied content, which might be a sign-in page, a passcode prompt, or simply a message letting the customer know that they don't have access (depending on what keys and settings you are using).

Then, of course, once a customer gains access, they will be shown the content of the page normally.

While that is the default behavior, you also have the ability to send customers to a different page before or after they gain access to the content. So in this way, there are two types of redirecting - redirecting customers right away once they arrive on the locked page, or redirecting customer once they gain access.

Whenever you use Locksmith to require your visitors to log in with their customer account, Locksmith will automatically pull in your theme's customer login form, with a message of your choosing added just above it.

You can customize the message in two places:

Locksmith access denied content is presented to customers who are signed in, but don’t meet the access requirements of the lock (e.g. the customer doesn’t have the specific customer tag that is required for access). Or when the lock has no keys.

Key conditions that use the “Access denied content" filed:

• is tagged with…

Locksmith has a feature to create "Liquid" locks, which allows you to lock pages in your store that are otherwise not searchable using the basic "Add lock" resource search in Locksmith.

Moving on - to begin, click in the "Add a new lock" search field and select "Start a Liquid lock", or type "Liquid" in the search field:

Then click "Start a new lock":

By default, Locksmith's apply to all matching option/value combinations. For example, you'll typically see something like this:

Once a variant lock is created, you can limit which products it applies to by using the key condition labelled "If the product is tagged with":

You'll use any existing product tags to denote which products you want the variant lock to apply to, or create new product tags if needed.

If you want the lock to apply to variants on one product tag only, and leave all other products untouched, for example, you'll use an inverted key condition like so:

Then, as a separate key, add in your conditions for access to the product. So if you want to allow access to the variant with a sign in, that will look like this:

It cannot. To our knowledge, this feature cannot be disabled, and its behavior cannot be adjusted – and, it's an integral part of the operation of many themes. If you have questions about this, contact Shopify support.

If preventing access to these endpoints is mission critical, you could consider building a web proxy that allows all traffic except those endpoints. This would be a custom project, and it's not something we can help with, or support.