I’m editing an unpublished Studio theme (my working copy of the published theme).
I start by opening the theme editor for my unpublished theme. I then add a new Pages template (faq-template). I add sections and content and then save the template.
Next I attempt to add a Page in the Shopify Admin (Online Store - Pages) that is visible and will use the new template in the unpublished theme. Unfortunately, the new template is not in the selectable template list.
I get the same results when I try to add a menu item, the new page does not show up. If I try to use a link, I can save the menu item, but I get a 404 page not found when I preview the unpublished theme.
@Opus2026 ,
This happens because pages and templates are tied to the published theme, not the unpublished one. When you create a new template in an unpublished theme, Shopify Admin (Pages section) usually won’t show that template in the dropdown until the theme is published or the template exists in the live theme.
Create the page first using the default template, then once the theme with the new template is published , you’ll be able to select the new template in the page settings.
Also note that menu links pointing to pages using templates from an unpublished theme can return a 404 in preview, because Shopify is still referencing the structure of the live theme.
Just create the templates on the live theme and then start adding pages. Now you get to select the template in the dropdown and can start working on the working copy of your theme.
The template won’t show up in the Pages admin until it exists in your published theme, not just the unpublished one. Shopify pulls the available page templates from the live theme when populating that dropdown, so your faq-template is essentially invisible to the admin until it’s published.
The cleanest workaround is to duplicate the template JSON file into your published theme as well, even if it’s just a placeholder. You can do this through the code editor on your published theme, create templates/page.faq-template.json with minimal content, and then the template will appear in the Pages dropdown. Once you assign the page to that template and build out your menu item, everything will resolve correctly when you eventually publish your working copy.
The 404 you’re seeing on preview is the same root cause, the page exists but has no valid template assigned in the context of that theme yet.
Thank you. Your explanation was very clear and helpful. I think my question was possibly answered in a 2022 post. I appreciate all the responses to my questions.