I read you are currently only able to search by barcode and item name when receiving items in from a transfer. I have transfers with 1,000 items that come in separate deliveries across the season. I need to be able to search for and select just those items received by SKU.
Shopify’s current documentation confirms that transfer receiving can identify items from the variant’s Barcode field, while SKU and Barcode are treated as separate fields. I couldn’t find native SKU lookup documented for the receiving screen, so this does look like a real limitation.
Since these items arrive in separate deliveries, one option worth checking first is Shopify’s multiple-shipment workflow. A single transfer can contain separate shipments, and each shipment can be received independently. If you know which products are arriving in each delivery, splitting or moving them into separate shipments should give you a much shorter receiving list.
Another possible workaround, only if your Barcode fields are currently unused, is to copy each variant’s SKU into its Barcode field. Then an SKU label containing that same value should be identifiable through the barcode-based receiving workflow. I would test this with one variant before making any bulk changes.
I would not overwrite real UPC, EAN, or GTIN values to do this. The Barcode field can also be used by POS, warehouse integrations, label systems, and sales channels that expect a valid product barcode. If the test works and none of those conflicts apply, the values can be backfilled through a product CSV.
Otherwise, I’d submit SKU search as product feedback. For larger receiving operations, SKU is a reasonable identifier to expect that screen to support.