Search tips for in-app bulk product editing in Shopify
Effectively searching for products will save you time and make it quicker to use different parts of the app. This document contains tips that you can use to speed up workflow and save you more time.
The search bar
When you open up the app you'll be greeted with the search bar, front and center:
There's three ways you can search for products:
- Typing text in the search box and pressing Enter
- Clicking on the Filter drop-down so search by a particular field (SKU, inventory etc..)
- Clicking on 'Saved Search' tab (eg, 'Lodge Products' in the screenshot above)
Text searches
The quickest way to search for products is to type in some text and press Enter (or click the Search button). When you do this, the Bulk Editor app will search for products who have the text in one of these fields:
- Title
- Vendor
- Product Type
- Tags
- Description
While this is a quick way to find products, it might return some unexpected results. For example you might want products with the tag "Ablestar" but a text search will also return products that have "Ablestar" as the vendor.
If you are looking for products that match a specific field, we recommend using the Filter drop down.
Filter drop down
When you click on the Filters drop down a small window will pop up where you can choose:
- The field you want to search for
- How you want to search on that field
- Which value to use for the search
For example, here we're searching for all products that contain 'Dress' in the title:
This drop down is the preferred way to search for products as it will match just the field you're looking for.
Additional search criteria
The field selector in Filter drop down also has several custom searches. If you scroll down to the bottom you'll be able to search by the following:
- Compare Price is Blank
- Created in last 24 hours
- Created in last 7 days
- Doesn't have images
- Has Duplicate SKU
- Has Images
- Not in any Collection
- Not in any Manual Collection
- Price < Compare Price
- Price = Compare Price
- Price > Compare Price
- Updated in last 24 hours
- Updated in last 7 days
Search for multiple SKUs at once
- Field: SKU
- How: equals
- Value: a comma-separated list of the SKUs
For example, adding a filter like this:
Will return products that match any of those SKUs.
Saved searches
You can save frequently-used searches by clicking on the Save Search button after you've added some search criteria.
The saved searches will appear as tabs at the top of the search area. Clicking them will load the search.
You can view, rename and delete saved searching by going to Settings -> Saved Searches in the left-hand menu.
Learn more about saved searches.
Excluding products from a search
You can manually exclude products from the search results. To do so, click on the circle icon with the minus sign to the right of the product row. This icon will only appear if you already have other filters added to your search.
Toggle between products that meet "all conditions" and "any conditions"
When filtering your products for an in-app edit, you can toggle between searching for "products that match any of the following conditions" or "products that match all of the following conditions" by clicking on the link underneath Filter.
Sometimes you might run a search and be unsure if a product you see in the results is the one you are looking for (you might have several different products with the same title).
To view the product's details just click on the product in the search results. This will display the details for the product on a separate back. If you hit the 'back' button in your browser you will return the home page with your previous search loaded.
Search for products with no weight
If a product in Shopify does not have a weight set, it will default to zero. You can find these products with these steps:
- From the home screen, click on the Filters drop down
- Select the fields to search for Weight = 0
- Click on Add Filter
Search for products with no tags
- From the home screen, click on the Filters drop down
- Choose Tag, then set the option to "contains" (both case sensitive and case insensitive will work)
- Enter "[EMPTY]" into the field
- Select Add Filter (or press enter).
Search for products with no description
To search for products with no description:
- From the home screen, click on the Filters drop down
- Choose Description
- Set the option to Equals
- Select Add Filter (leave the field for the description empty).
Search for products that are published on your store (or not)
To search for products that are published on your online store:
- Select Filter on the main search page
- Choose Published on Web
- Select Yes, the product is published
If you would like to see unpublished products, repeat the steps above but choose No, the product is not published
Search for products with duplicate titles, SKUs, or barcodes
The app has three custom filters to help searching for products with duplicate titles, SKUs, or barcodes:
For more information please read our article on searching for duplicate titles.