Creating and Managing Custom Shopify Apps: A Comprehensive Guide

Custom Shopify Apps: Creation, Management, and Deletion

What is a Shopify Custom app?

Custom Shopify apps are applications that you or a developer build exclusively for your Shopify store. Unlike public apps, which are designed to be used by many stores, custom apps are tailored to your specific needs and can be used to add features to your Shopify admin, access your store's data directly using Shopify's APIs, or extend your online store to other platforms using the Storefront API.

Before you can create a custom app for your store, you need to enable custom app development. This can be done from your Shopify admin by navigating to Settings > Apps and sales channels > Develop apps > Allow custom app development.

Custom app creation and installation

Creating and installing a custom app requires setting API scopes, which determine which parts of your store the custom app can access. After the app is installed, you'll receive access tokens that the app uses to access information from your store using Shopify's APIs. The API scopes can be assigned during the creation of the app and can be updated later if needed.

To get the API credentials for a custom app, you can navigate to the app's API credentials page from your Shopify admin. Here, you can check the Storefront access token, the API key, and the API secret for a custom app. However, after revealing the Admin API access token once, you can only check the last four digits of the token.

Uninstallation and deletion of a custom app

Uninstalling a custom app revokes your Admin and Storefront API access tokens, removes any webhooks and fulfillment services registered under the app, and the app can't access store data. If you re-install the app, you'll get new access tokens. To uninstall a custom app, navigate to Settings > Apps and sales channels > Develop apps > select the app > Uninstall app.

Deleting a custom app is a permanent action and the app can't be recovered. If you want to temporarily disable an app on your store without deleting it, you can uninstall the app instead. To delete a custom app, navigate to Settings > Apps and sales channels > Develop apps > App settings > Delete app.

Remember, creating a custom app requires development knowledge and can be challenging. If you need help creating custom apps for your store, you can hire a Shopify Expert. Also, it's important to share your API secret only with developers that you trust.