# Shopify Script Tags Deprecation: How to Prepare Before March 1st 2027

The Shopify script tags deprecation stops app scripts loading on storefronts from 1 March 2027. Find the affected apps and switch on their replacements.

From 1 March 2027, Shopify will stop loading any script that has been added via an app to your storefront through a script tag. Whatever the purpose of the script, whether a popup, a product widget or a tracking call, it will most likely stop appearing, and nothing in the admin will tell you. Shopify had planned a banner to warn stores running affected apps, and its migration guide now says it has decided not to show one. Here is what you need to know and how to prepare before March 1st 2027.
What the Shopify script tags deprecation changes
A script tag lets an app load JavaScript on your storefront without touching the theme. That made script tags easy for app developers and hard for merchants to see, because they don’t appear in the theme editor or anywhere else in the admin.
Shopify’s changelog entry sets two dates. Since 1 October 2026, apps can’t create or update script tags on any API version. On 1 March 2027, Shopify stops injecting the ones that already exist. Script tags have already stopped running on the Order status page under an earlier deprecation, so the storefront is the last place they still work.
The change only affects scripts that apps add. JavaScript a developer has written into your theme files, or pasted into a custom Liquid block, is theme code and keeps running.
How to find which apps use script tags
You don’t need API access for a first pass. Open your storefront, view the page source and search for asyncLoad. This short function in the page head is how Shopify loads script tags. It holds a list of URLs, each ending in ?shop= followed by your store’s myshopify.com address, and each URL is one script tag. The domain usually tells you which app it belongs to. Where it doesn’t, search for the domain with “Shopify app” and you’ll generally find the vendor.
Then sort the list by who is responsible for fixing each one:

Apps from the Shopify App Store. Ask the vendor whether they’ve released a replacement, and what you need to do to turn it on.
Custom apps built for your store by an agency or developer. Whoever maintains the app has to rebuild that part of it. Check first how the app was created: Shopify’s guide notes that custom apps created directly in the Shopify admin can’t use app extensions at all, so the script either moves into the theme or the app is rebuilt as a proper app.
Services that had you create an app in the admin and paste an access token into their dashboard. These are admin-created apps too, and Shopify’s position is that the service has to release a real app. If it hasn’t announced one, ask now.

The last two groups need the most attention. An App Store vendor has to update its app for every store that uses it. A custom app built for your store years ago has nobody responsible for updating it until you arrange it.
What replaces script tags: app embeds and web pixels
Shopify offers two replacements, and which one an app uses depends on what its script does.
An app embed block covers anything that changes what customers see. It ships as part of the app and appears in the theme editor under App embeds, where you can see that it’s running and switch it off. It catches merchants out in two ways. It stays off until someone switches it on, so a vendor releasing an update doesn’t fix your store by itself. And it’s switched on per theme. If you publish a new theme after the migration, its app embeds need enabling again, so put that on the launch checklist for any redesign planned for early 2027.
A web pixel covers scripts that only collect analytics or conversion data. It runs in a sandbox, respects customers’ privacy choices and needs no theme editor step. The app sets it up, and you approve the permissions when you install or update the app.
During the changeover, an old script tag and its replacement can both run at once. Shopify’s guide warns that this loads the script twice, which can double-count analytics events or show an app’s interface twice on the page. After each switch, check the page source to confirm the old URL has gone, and keep an eye on conversion figures for a jump nobody can explain.
Timing around the peak season
The 1 March deadline falls soon after the busiest stretch of the retail year. For stores that freeze code from November through the Boxing Day sales, that leaves January and February for these changes, alongside whatever else has been waiting for the freeze to lift.
Viewing the page source changes nothing on the store, so the audit itself doesn’t interfere with a code freeze. Replies from app vendors and developers can be slow over December, though, and the longest lead times belong to apps with no replacement yet, because someone has to build one before it can be switched on.
Where Fontis can help
We build custom Shopify apps and theme extensions, and we can work through the audit with you, rebuild script-tag features in a form Shopify will keep loading, or move a script into the theme where that’s the sensible option. App scripts that load on every page are also one of the most common causes of slow Shopify stores, so the audit is a good moment to check what each one costs you. That’s the core of our Shopify performance work, and our post on Core Web Vitals for ecommerce explains which measures matter. If your list turns up apps nobody can account for, get in touch.