How can I access metaobject values in product metafields?

Technical Q&A

Topic summary

Core Issue:
Developers are struggling to access metaobject values stored in product metafields using Liquid, with initial attempts returning only GID reference URLs instead of actual field values.

Working Solutions:

  • For metafields containing metaobject lists:
{% assign items = product.metafields.custom.namespace.value %}
{% for item in items %}
  {{ item.field_name.value }}
{% endfor %}
  • For shop-level metaobjects (all entries):
{% assign icons = shop.metaobjects.icon.values %}
{% for icon in icons %}
  {{ icon.title }}
{% endfor %}

Key Distinctions:

  • Use product.metafields.custom.key.value when metafield references specific metaobjects selected per product
  • Use shop.metaobjects.type.values to access all metaobject entries globally
  • Access nested fields with .field_name.value syntax

Rich Text Handling:
For rich text metaobject fields, use:

  • metafield_text filter (strips formatting)
  • metafield_tag filter (preserves hyperlinks, lists)

Status:
Resolved through community collaboration. Multiple users confirmed working implementations. Documentation gaps noted as a recurring frustration during the feature’s early rollout.

Summarized with AI on October 30. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hello,

My store has been given access to metaobjects, and so I’ve started using it and setup a few metaobjects that I want to use in the metafields for products and variants. But I don’t quite get how I can access the values of the meta object via the metafields?

I thought maybe something like this would make sense:

{% for metaobject in product.metafields.namespace.key %}
{{ metaobject.field.value }}
{% endfor %}

Appreciate the correct way to do this, and updating the Liquid API documentation would be very helpful.

Thanks.

2

Hey Rdaniel, what datatyp of metafield are you using?
Whats the output when you print {{ product.metafields.namespace.key }}?

Mabey your metafield value is a string? You can create an array with | split like so:

{% assign array = "value1,value2,value3" | split: "," %}
{% for value in array %}
  {{value}}
{% endfor %}
3

As described, I’m using metaobjects.

When printing {{ product.metafields.namespace.key }} I get the gid reference url.

4

Is there no one that can answer this? It would be poor to add such a nice way of storing information without the possibility to access the information in the frontend…?

5

They are a new feature, so everyone’s learning curve is high.

Thoroughly review the docs if you not simply using dynamic sources in theme settings.

Merchants start here

https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/custom-data/metaobjects

Devs

https://shopify.dev/docs/apps/custom-data/metaobjects

https://shopify.dev/api/liquid/objects/metaobject

6

Thanks,

I’ve read this documentation. But I can’t see how it gives information on how to access values from metaobjects that are defined in metafields in example of a product. Might be something I’ve overlooked though…

1 Like
7

Hi Rdaniel

Try to access all data with {{ product.metafields.namespace.values }} and then iterate through that

{% for metaobject in product.metafields.namespace.values %}
{{ metaobject.field }}
{{ metaobject.field.value }}
{% endfor %}

Maybe it is not clear with those abstract names so here is a small example.

Let’s say there is a meta object Icon with 2 fields Title and Image. To get those we iterate like

{% assign icons = shop.metaobjects.icon.values %}

        {% for icon in icons %}  
	        
	            

	            
	                {{ icon.title }}
	            
	        

        {% endfor %}

Try it out.

5 Likes
8

Using @LazaEAG example worked for a metaobject. But I wanted to use the metaobject as a database to store all the colour swatches for different products and select which ones I wanted to show on which product. The code above output EVERY colour swatch in the metaobject. So I made a metafield using the metaobject I had created as the content type.

That way for each product I can select which colour swatches from the metaobject that I want to display.

Modifying the code slightly for metafield:

{% assign swatches = product.metafields.custom.available_colours_swatches.value %}

                {% for swatch in swatches %}  
                  
                      
                      
                          {{ swatch.name.value }}
                      
                  

                {% endfor %}
5 Likes
9 
{% assign myfields = product.metafields.custom.namespace.value %}

                {% for myfield in myfields %}  
                  

                      
                      
                          {{ myfield.name.value }}
                      
                  

                {% endfor %}
2 Likes
10

Hi @Phil_Houghton

First, thank you for sharing examples. And you are right, my example was some global case, I used it for one section with icons and as part of another object that has the same icons. Like you said for the product is slightly different.

1 Like
11

Thank YOU for pointing me in the right direction. Was frustrated by the lack of documentation and having no luck up until then executing what I needed to do :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
12

@Phil_Houghton Thank you for this. I didn’t have to iterate so I modified your code to make it work for me.

Here is my code for anyone reading this in the future:

{% assign foo = product.metafields.custom.backing.value %}

  
  

    {{foo.backing_title.value }}

Notes:

*This code works in Custom Liquid sections/blocks

*Replace backing with your metafield name

*Replace backing_img and backing_title with your metaobject’s field names

3 Likes
13

Hi all, I am not sure how this needs to work in other areas of shopify, such as collection page.

Basically I want to create a carousel that populates data from each entry inside of the metaobject created. I followed the above sets, but having 0 success. Below is the following code I have implemented.

{% assign pfilters = collection.metafields.custom.collection_filter.values %}

{% for pfilter in pfilters %}
{{ pfilters.collectiontitle.value }}
{% endfor %}

14

Hi @T_Chord22

You should try to debug and see where the issue appears.

So first check if {{ collection.metafields.custom.collection_filter.values | json }} is not empty. If it is try with {{ collection.metafields.custom.collection_filter.value | json }} so without “s” at the end.

Next step print {{ pfilter | json }} and also the try with {{ pfilters.collectiontitle }}

15

@LazaEAG thanks for the reply. I followed your steps above and it seems the only one that returns data is {{ collection.metafields.custom.collection_filter.value | json }}

This is what it returns: {“collectionimage”:“gid://shopify/MediaImage/33168175333688”,“collectiontitle”:“Kitchen”}

This returns: {{ collection.metafields.custom.collection_filter.values | json }} null
This returns: {{ pfilter | json }} null
This returns: {{ pfilters.collectiontitle }} nothing

16

@T_Chord22

Sorry now I am guessing a bit but if you see just one filter and you have entered more the try to print only

{{ collection.metafields.custom.collection_filter | json }}

And if that holds all filters then assign that to pfilters. Also I see mistake now here

{% for pfilter in pfilters %}
{{ pfilters.collectiontitle.value }}
{% endfor %}

{{ pfilters.collectiontitle.value }} is wrong, you have to target single filter so

{{ pfilter.collectiontitle.value }} or {{ pfilter.collectiontitle }}

Try a few things :slightly_smiling_face: and hope you find the right solution.

17

@LazaEAG Thanks lot for the answer.

18

@LazaEAG I have rich text input in the schema I was able to render the object.

on page display this object. but I want to render the HTML code. how I can do that?

{"type"=>"root", "children"=>[{"listType"=>"unordered", "type"=>"list", "children"=>[{"type"=>"list-item", "children"=>[{"type"=>"text", "value"=>"list"}]}, {"type"=>"list-item", "children"=>[{"type"=>"text", "value"=>"list 2"}]}, {"type"=>"list-item", "children"=>[{"type"=>"text", "value"=>"list 3"}]}, {"type"=>"list-item", "children"=>[{"type"=>"text", "value"=>""}]}]}]}
2 Likes
19

Hi guys, I’m having a similar issues and don’t understand what I’m doing wrong.

I have a customer metafield containing list of metaobjects. The metafield has namespace custom and key license_new and it references a metaobject of type license which has 2 fields:

  1. reference_product: reference to the product.
  2. license_files: a list of generic files.

I want to display the list of metaobjects, specifically a link to the reference_product and links to download the related license_files, in the customer account page. I’m attempting to do so using

{% assign licenses = customer.metafields.custom.license_new.value %}
      {% for license in licenses %}
        {{ license.reference_product.value }} 

      {% endfor %}

This doesn’t seem to work and I don’t understand why.

I tried a similar approach with a simpler metafiled of key licenses that only contains a list of generic files. If I try to display the files IDs by doing

{% assign licenses = customer.metafields.custom.licenses.value %}
      {% for license in licenses %}
        {{ license.id }} 

      {% endfor %}

everything works as expected.

Can anyone see what I’m doing wrong? Thank you :slightly_smiling_face:

20

Hi, I’m having an issue with this code where it’s getting the data from all products rather than the current product.

I’ve updated my code to the below:

{% assign icons = shop.metaobjects.features.values %}

{% for icon in icons %}

{{ icon.one }}
{% endfor %}

I’ve also tried this but it doesn’t work:

{% assign icons = shop.metaobjects.features.values | where: ‘product_id’, product.id %}

{% for icon in icons %}

{{ icon.one }}
{% endfor %}