Shopify’s recent admin update hides the search bars on Products, Orders, and other lists by default. Users must click a small icon on the right (magnifying glass/filter) or press the “f” key to reveal/focus the search. There’s currently no setting to keep it visible by default.
Impact reported: extra clicks and disrupted workflows, especially for stores with tens of thousands of items/orders. Early issues included searches returning nothing (order numbers, customer names, postcodes) and loss of “created last/updated last” sorting. Some note default sort shows oldest first and that predictive search lags or deletes characters while typing.
Workarounds: use the “f” keyboard shortcut; click the reveal icon; a few shared Tampermonkey scripts to auto-open the bar, but these break as Shopify’s generated HTML identifiers change. On mobile, the shortcut isn’t available.
Updates: multiple users report Shopify has partially fixed search (customer name/email and general searching now working), but the bar remains hidden by default and predictive/typing issues persist. Shopify support acknowledged the change is unpopular and said it’s under review; no option exists to keep the bar always on.
Status: partially addressed; key requests (always-visible search bar, stable sorting, better performance) remain unresolved. Users are submitting support tickets to push for a revert or setting.
AAARRGGHH!!
Yet another example of Shopify making purely cosmetic changes - that have ZERO use to the average small business owner and often actually make our lives more difficult by ADDING clicks to the things we use daily. It frustrates the hell out of me.
I’m experiencing the same level of displeasure at them hiding the search bar that I use hundreds of times a day - can you tell me where it is please?