Deleted Product Recovery

When you delete products from Shopify using HF Product Manager, a backup is automatically created. The Deleted Product Recovery window lets you browse these backups and restore products back to your store.

How Backups Work

  • Automatic: Backups are created automatically before any delete operation (bulk or single)
  • Complete: The full product is backed up including variants, images, metafields, and SEO data
  • Images: Product images are downloaded and stored locally for restoration
  • Retention: Up to 50 backup versions per product are kept; older backups are automatically removed

Backups are stored locally on your machine. They are separate from the Backup Manager used for bulk operation rollbacks.

Opening Deleted Product Recovery

Access using one of these methods:

  • Toolbar: Recovery dropdown > Recover Deleted Products
  • Right-click: Recover Deleted Products

Browsing Deleted Products

Product List

The left panel shows all backed-up deleted products for the current store:

Column Description
Title Product name at time of deletion
Deleted Date and time of deletion
Variants Number of variants (blue badge)
Images Number of images (purple badge)
Operation What triggered the deletion (e.g., BulkDelete)

Use the search box at the top to filter by product title. Search is case-insensitive and updates the list in real time.

Preview Panel

Select a product to see a preview on the right side:

  • Title (copyable)
  • Vendor
  • Product Type
  • Status (Active, Draft, or Archived at time of deletion)
  • Tags
  • Backup Information with deletion timestamp and original Shopify ID

Restoring a Product

  1. Select the product from the list
  2. Click Restore Product (green button)
  3. Confirm when prompted

What Gets Restored

  • Product title, description, vendor, type, status, tags
  • All variants with options, prices, SKUs, barcodes, weight
  • Product images with alt text and positions
  • SEO title and description
  • Product and variant metafields

Restore Process

The restore runs in three phases:

  1. Create Product & Variants - The product is recreated in Shopify with all its variants and options
  2. Upload Images - Backed-up images are uploaded to the new product (up to 5 concurrent uploads)
  3. Restore Metafields - Product and variant metafields are set via the API

Progress is shown in the operation progress window with step-by-step updates.

Partial Success

If some parts fail (e.g., an image fails to upload or a metafield can't be set), the restore continues with remaining items. The results summary shows what succeeded and what failed.

Important Limitations

  • New Shopify IDs: Restored products receive new Shopify product and variant IDs. The original IDs cannot be reused.
  • Collection Membership: Products are not automatically re-added to collections. You must reassign collections manually after restore.
  • URL Changes: Since the product gets a new ID, any direct links using the old ID will no longer work. The handle (URL slug) is preserved.
  • Image Timing: Restored images may take a moment to appear in Shopify due to CDN processing. Use Sync > Refresh to update the grid.
  • Metafield Definitions: Metafield definitions must still exist in Shopify for metafields to restore successfully. If a definition was deleted, those metafields will fail.

Deleting Backups

To permanently remove a backup:

  1. Select the product
  2. Click Delete Backup
  3. Confirm when prompted

This action cannot be undone. The backup data and associated image files are permanently removed.

Troubleshooting

"No deleted products found"

  • Backups are per-store. Make sure you're connected to the correct store.
  • Backups are only created when deleting through HF Product Manager. Products deleted directly in Shopify Admin are not backed up.

Restore fails with variant errors

  • The product may have options that conflict with existing products
  • Check the error message in the results for specifics
  • If variant creation fails, any partially-created product is automatically cleaned up

Images not appearing after restore

  • Use Sync > Refresh to reload product data
  • Large images may take longer to process on Shopify's CDN
  • Check the restore results for any image upload failures

Some metafields not restored

  • Verify the metafield definitions still exist in Shopify Admin
  • Check that the metafield type hasn't changed since deletion
  • The restore results will list which metafields failed and why

See Also