How to Search for a Product by UPC Number in Admin?

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

  • Issue: A merchant stored a product’s UPC (Universal Product Code) in a Shopify metafield (custom field) and wants to search for the product in the admin by that UPC.

  • Recommended approach: Use Shopify’s built-in Barcode field to store the UPC. This field is searchable in the Shopify admin. Screenshots were shared showing where to enter the barcode and how to search by it.

  • If UPC must remain a metafield: Shopify’s admin can’t natively search metafield contents. Workarounds include:
    • Export products to CSV (includes metafields) and filter externally.
    • Use a third-party app (Ablestar Bulk Product Editor) that supports searching by metafields.

  • Update/steps with Ablestar: After installing the app, go to Products (or Start a new bulk edit) → Add filter → select the relevant metafield (via the Metafields section or by typing) → choose the match condition (text match, is set, etc.) → Add filter. Then you can open products in Shopify, bulk edit, or export results. A short demo video was provided.

  • Status: A clear workaround is provided via the Barcode field or the Ablestar app; no native admin-only solution for metafield search.

Summarized with AI on December 19. AI used: gpt-5.
1

I’ve added a UPC as a metafield, and it now appears in the product admin section.

I would like to find a specific product in the admin area using its UPC number.

How can I accomplish this?

2

Hello,

Shopify has a standard ‘Barcode’ field that you can use to store the UPC:

Screenshot 2024-09-10 at 3.54.57 PM.png
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An advantage to using this field instead of a metafield is that you can easily search for it in the Shopify admin:

Screenshot 2024-09-10 at 3.56.07 PM.png
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If, however, you need to store the UPC as a metafield for some reason, there isn’t an easy way to search for metafield contents. The only two things I can think of are:

  • Use the Shopify admin to export all your product data to a CSV file. This CSV file will include metafields and then you can filter for your products there
  • Use a third-part app like our Ablestar Bulk Product Editor which supports searching for products by metafields

Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like there’s an easy way to do this just within the Shopify admin

Best,

Daniel

1 Like
3

Thank you for your response! I’ve installed Ablestar. Could you please guide me on how to search for metafields directly?

1 Like
4

Hi @Benbash ,

You can search by metafields from the product page of the app. To get there you can either click on Start a new bulk edit from the home page of choose the Products option in the left-hand menu.

When you’re on the products page it’ll look similar to the regular products page in the Shopify admin except you have more filters and actions. To filter for products by metafield:

  • Click on the Add filter button
  • Choose the metafield from the list. You can either scroll down to the ‘Metafields’ section or start typing the name of the metafield
  • Choose how you want to search for the metafield (matching some text, if it’s set etc..) and click on Add filter

Here’s a short video showing what it looks like:

Once you have the products selected you can either:

  • Click on individual products to view them in the Shopify admin
  • Click on Edit products to bulk edit the products
  • Click on Export to export the matching products to a spreadsheet

I hope this helps, let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

Best,

Daniel