How to enable adding a note to an order that customers can view?

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

A user seeks a way to add notes to existing orders that customers can view and receive email notifications about.

Current Solution:

  • Order notes can be included in Shopify email templates using the Liquid variable {{ note }} or {{ order.note }}
  • Code example provided:
{% if order.note %}
Order notes: {{ note }}
{% endif %}
  • This successfully displays notes when order confirmation emails are manually resent

Remaining Challenge:

  • Notes don’t trigger automatic email notifications when added to existing orders
  • Only appear when order confirmation is manually resent

Proposed Solutions:

  • Setting up a custom email server that listens for order note events and triggers automated notifications
  • Experimenting with the full variable syntax {{ order.note }} instead of {{ note }}

Open Question:

  • A separate user asks whether this approach works for draft order invoices, as the code doesn’t seem to function in that context
Summarized with AI on November 2. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hi. Currently all notes added to an order are internal and can only be viewed by staff. Is there an app or a code that can allow me to add a note to an existing order and for the customer to be able to view it on his end and also get notification via email that a note has been added?

2

You can include the order note in emails using {{ note }}.

Reference: https://shopify.dev/docs/themes/liquid/reference/objects/order#order-note.

To implement that, an example would be to edit your order confirmation email and add some code like this:

{% if order.note %}

**Order notes**: {{ note }}

{% endif %}
3

Thank you for this. Added in the order notification and it worked. The only thing missing though is it does not automatically send an email to the customer. I need to resend the order confirmation email and notes will show up.

Is it possible that every time a note is added to the order that it will automatically send an email saying A NOTE HAS BEEN ADDED TO YOUR ORDER?

4

If it’s in the order confirmation email, then it should send when that email sends out.

If you’d like the email to be sent outside of Shopify’s notification system, you (or my team if you need a developer) can set up a custom email server that listens for events on your site and triggers an email as you’d like (for example, like you said when a note is added to the order).

If it’s not sending on the first notification, but on your resend, try experimenting with your code. For example, instead of {{ note }}, try the full variable {{ order.note }}.

5

Hi, I would like to add the notes from a draft order to an “draft order invoice” email. I have tried the above code but it doesn’t seem to work. Does the code need to be different for a draft order?

Thank you.