Preview Draft Site While Keeping Live Site Up

Technical Q&A

Topic summary

Problem: Unable to preview a draft Shopify Dawn theme with new page/product templates while keeping the current live site up. Creating templates in the draft theme is possible, but they can’t be easily applied to new pages, and the theme preview doesn’t reflect all changes. The requester asks if a staging domain exists.

Context: In Shopify, a “draft theme” is unpublished; a “live theme” is the active storefront. “Templates” control layouts for pages/products and must be assigned to specific content to preview accurately.

Proposed workaround: Temporarily publish the draft theme, assign the new templates to pages/products, then unpublish it. Reported effect: Assigned templates should remain visible when previewing the draft theme afterward.

Open question: A participant asks whether briefly publishing the new theme and then reverting will alter the live site’s existing template assignments. No answer provided yet.

Status: Partial workaround identified; no official staging domain solution discussed. Discussion remains open with a key concern about potential impact on the live site when toggling themes.

Summarized with AI on January 10. AI used: gpt-5.
1

Hello - I am working on a new version of my site using the Dawn theme, which is in draft. I’m having trouble creating new pages that use different templates. It seems as though I can create new templates in the Dawn theme, but can’t apply them to new pages because the templates are in draft…? Not sure if anyone knows a workaround for that.

I’d like to show the draft site to my colleagues for review, but it’s a very wonky process to show each page due to the templates for pages and products all being different and not having the new pages actually made yet. Is there a way that I can keep my current live site up and show the preview the draft theme? When I’m customizing Dawn and click the 3 dots in the top left corner and click ‘Preview’, not everything shows. Is there a way to have a staging site domain or something?

I so appreciate any help! Thank you!

1 Like
2

HI @thestrandedshop ,

What I usually do in this circumstances, is to make the draft theme live for a minute, assign the templates, then you can unpublished it. You should see the templates assigned even you are just previewing the draft theme.

3

Hi! I’m experiencing the same issue as OP, but have a quick question before I try your solution. Once I un-publish my draft theme after assigning all the new page templates, will my current site be affected when re-published? I guess in other words, will the templates from the old theme be replaced by the ones I created and momentarily published with the new theme.