Is there a way to turn off the customer notifications that are sent automatically when a sale is made, or an item is shipped, etc? As an artist, each sale is unique and each item goes through a different process from sales to fulfillment. As such, I would like each of my customer notification emails to be unique. The trouble seems to be that Shopify will send automatic notifications to the customer, often stating something inaccurate (such as the item is being shipped, when in fact the artwork is being printed), then I will send an email to the customer (by clicking the email address of the customer within the Shopify system) to provide an accurate update. The customer is then confused by receiving multiple conflicting emails.
I see that Shopify provides checkboxes to turn on/off certain customer notifications, but the majority do not seen to have a way to be turned off. Is there a way to turn off all the other customer notifications?
When a sale is made (order confirmation), I don’t think there’s a way to turn it off, and you probably wouldn’t want to, since most online shopping experiences you receive a confirmation when you place an order.
If you have emails sending with inaccurate information about shipping, to solve that you can:
a) Edit the notification templates Settings > Notifications
b) Deselect the box to notify customer in the order details page (for example when making fulfillment or shipping actions)
c) If you’re using a 3rd party connected to fulfillment, they can choose whether to have the fulfillment notification trigger or not, so if they’re triggering it, just ask them not to.
Two years after this feature request and I am still wanting full control over whether or not to have Shopify send automatically triggered emails to my customers. I simply want to control my own business processes. This should not be too much to ask. Please provide toggles for all auto-sending emails, with a master “Turn all off/on” switch for ease of use.
I understand and relate to your frustration having experienced similar myself. In the absence of an absolute fix by Shopify as we too have been waiting, I’ve found the use of conditional if statements in the order confirmation email code useful in customising what is said to the customer, especially where orders are unique and custom.
While the trigger (upon successful payment) is automatic and unable to be interrupted, the prevailing workaround seems to be editing the contents of the email to say something else.
Totally get where you’re coming from. Unfortunately, Shopify doesn’t give full control to disable all customer notifications from the admin—especially the order confirmation and shipping update emails, which are automatically triggered as part of their core system.
Here’s what you can do:
Avoid triggering certain notifications manually:
For shipping updates, don’t mark the order as “Fulfilled” inside Shopify unless you’re ready for the customer to receive the shipping email.
If you’re working with draft orders or custom workflows, you might use manual fulfillment to delay the automation.
Use a third-party app or Shopify Flow (Shopify Plus only):
Some merchants use Shopify Flow to create custom workflows that bypass standard notifications.
Alternatively, you could explore apps like Klaviyo or Omnisend to fully take over customer email flows. You’d need to disable as many Shopify notifications as possible and let the app handle communication.
Customize existing notifications:
Since you can’t turn off all of them, you might edit the templates to clarify the message (e.g., change “Your order has shipped” to “Your artwork is now in production”).
Sadly, there’s no global on/off switch right now for all notifications, but customizing the messaging and controlling when you fulfill can reduce confusion.
Let me know if this helps. Send me your store link so I can take a look.