How to turn off Shopify Inbox, hide it, or uninstall it

How to turn off Shopify Inbox

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store, then Themes.
2. On your live theme, click Customize (some stores show Edit theme).
3. In the left sidebar, click App embeds, the puzzle piece icon.
4. Switch off Shopify Inbox (it may be called Online store chat) and click Save.
5. Done! Shopify Inbox is now turned off.

The chat button disappears from your store straight away, and your old Inbox conversations are kept. Open your store in a private window, on your phone and your computer, to check it's gone.

Each theme keeps its own App embeds settings, so if you publish a different theme later, switch Shopify Inbox off on that theme too. Shopify's help page on Shopify Inbox chat settings has the same steps for turning it on.

Switching off the chat button is what most people are after, but it isn't the only way to turn Shopify Inbox off. Below are the others: stopping just the AI agent, stopping the sign-in step, hiding the chat on phones, uninstalling Inbox, and what happens to your chats. Matey turns Shopify Inbox's button off on most stores we put a custom chatbot on, so this is the guide we send them. If you're still choosing what goes in its place, see Shopify Inbox alternatives.

How do you turn off the Shopify Inbox AI agent?

You turn off the Shopify Inbox AI agent in the Inbox settings, not the theme editor. The chat stays on your store, and your staff answer every message.

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Sales channels, then Inbox.
2. In the Inbox agent section, turn the Inbox agent off.
3. Done! Your staff now answer every Shopify Inbox chat.

The change works straight away for new conversations. If you want the AI to cover only the hours your team is off, turn it back on and choose Only when your staff is unavailable instead of All conversations. Stores that had Inbox before the Inbox agent arrived start on Never, so the AI is already off unless someone switched it on.

How do you stop Shopify Inbox asking customers to sign in?

You stop Shopify Inbox asking customers to sign in by turning off Require sign-in to chat with staff. It's on by default for stores on new customer accounts, so customers have to sign in with a six-digit email code before they can message your staff.

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Sales channels, then Inbox, then Overview.
2. In the Chat settings section, click Require customer sign-in.
3. Turn Require sign-in to chat with staff off, and click Done.
4. Done! Customers can now message your staff without signing in.

There's a catch. With sign-in off, a customer can message your staff without leaving an email address, and once they leave your store you can't reach them. Stores on legacy customer accounts get the Customer pre-chat form instead, which asks for a name and email without a sign-in. That's the better middle ground, if your store has it.

How do you hide Shopify Inbox on mobile?

Shopify Inbox has no setting for hiding the chat on phones, but one rule of custom CSS does it. The chat button is a single element called shopify-chat, so you can hide it on small screens and leave it on laptops and desktops.

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store, then click Edit theme.
2. Click Theme settings (the cog icon), then Custom CSS.
3. Paste this in and click Save:

@media screen and (max-width: 749px) {
  shopify-chat { display: none !important; }
}

4. Done! Shopify Inbox is now hidden on phones.

Shopify's help page on adding custom CSS covers the limits: theme-wide rules can run to 1,500 characters, and a theme update can stop a rule working. To hide it everywhere, use shopify-chat { display: none !important; } on its own. Switching off the app embed does the same job more cleanly, though, and it stops the chat's code loading at all.

Hiding Shopify Inbox on only some pages, like the homepage or your product pages, takes a small change to your theme's code rather than a setting, so ask whoever looks after your theme. There's no way to hide the button after hours either. Your availability hours only decide whether your staff or the AI agent answers.

How do you uninstall Shopify Inbox?

You uninstall Shopify Inbox from your sales channels, because Shopify treats Inbox as a sales channel, not an app. Uninstalling also removes its chat from your theme.

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings, then Sales channels.
2. Next to Inbox, click the three dots, then Uninstall.
3. Tick I understand the risks of uninstalling this sales channel.
4. Click Uninstall.
5. Done! Shopify Inbox is now uninstalled.

The steps are on Shopify's help page for managing sales channels. If you use the Shopify Inbox app on your phone or computer, delete that too.

What happens to your chats when you turn off Shopify Inbox?

Turning off Shopify Inbox's chat button keeps all your conversations, but uninstalling it may not. Here's what to expect from each:

Shopify Inbox has no export for chat history, which Shopify confirmed in a reply to a merchant's review on the Shopify App Store. So before you uninstall, answer any open conversations and copy or screenshot the ones you want to keep. Customers created by the pre-chat form are ordinary customer records in your Customers list.

Should you turn off Shopify Inbox or keep it?

Keep Shopify Inbox if it's working for you and someone's around to answer the chats it hands over. Turn it off when a new chat takes its place, so two buttons never sit on top of each other in the corner of your store. If you haven't picked the new one yet, our guide on how to create a chatbot for your website covers the free, DIY, and built ways.

You don't always have to choose. A matey can answer customers first and hand over into Shopify Inbox, with the customer's request written as the first message, so your team keeps answering in the Inbox they know. In that setup we hide Inbox's own button and you only turn off its AI agent. The Shopify Inbox alternatives guide compares the other options, with prices in Australian dollars.

What should you check before you turn off Shopify Inbox?

Use the Matey switch-off checklist: five things to sort before your store's chat goes quiet.

1. Answer every open conversation, and tell those customers where to reach you next.
2. Save the chats you want to keep. There's no export, so copy or screenshot them.
3. Put the new chat live first, so your store is never without one.
4. Tell your staff, so nobody keeps checking an empty Inbox.
5. Check your store on your phone in a private window, and make sure only one chat button shows.

Want to see what a custom chatbot does in Shopify Inbox's place? Ask the matey in the bottom right corner of this page.