Delete a customer profile in Shopify
Fake accounts, test profiles, and duplicates pile up in a customer list until the counts stop meaning anything. Shopify lets you delete individual profiles and delete in bulk, but only profiles with no orders can go. This tutorial selects 23 profiles for cleanup: the 19 with no orders are deleted, and the 4 that hold orders stay.
Written · Shopify admin, desktop steps · 4 minutes read
The worked example
| Profiles selected for cleanup | 23 |
| Deleted, no orders | 19 |
| Kept, hold orders | 4 |
| Customers before | 214 |
| Customers after | 195 |
Download the deletion review: customer-deletion-review.csv (669 bytes, md5 e0190dc40f6a5699e2df43a83b1038a3).
A review sheet for the 23 profiles in this tutorial: order count, whether the profile can be deleted, and the action. 19 delete and 4 stay, adding to 23.
1Check the profile can be deleted
A customer profile cannot be deleted when the customer is associated with one or more orders, has ever had a subscription, has a pending redaction from an erasure request, or is the recipient of a scheduled gift card that has not been delivered yet. In the worked example, 4 of the 23 selected profiles hold orders and stay.
2Delete one profile
From your Shopify admin, go to Customers, then click the name of the customer whose profile you want to delete. Click More actions, then Delete customer. To confirm, click Delete customer again.
3Delete in bulk
To delete several at once, tick the boxes next to the profiles on the Customers list, click the menu icon next to the Bulk edit button, then click Delete customers, and click Delete to confirm. Only the profiles that can be deleted are deleted; any that cannot be deleted remain in your customer list.
4Check the count after
Read the customer count after the bulk delete. The worked example goes from 214 to 195, which is 19 deleted. If the count dropped by less than you selected, the difference is the profiles Shopify kept, and the review sheet below shows which ones.
The arithmetic
The cleanup selected 23 profiles.
| Group | Profiles | After |
|---|---|---|
| Deleted, no orders | 19 | Gone |
| Kept, hold orders | 4 | Stay |
| Selected for cleanup | 23 | 23 |
| Customers before | 214 | 214 |
| Customers after | 195 | 195 |
19 deleted plus 4 kept equals the 23 selected. 214 customers before minus 19 deleted equals 195 after. The 4 kept profiles are the ones with orders.
Held at the counter
A customer with any order cannot be deleted. Even one order, including a cancelled one, blocks deletion, because orders must stay linked to a customer record for accounting and legal reasons. For a privacy request about such a customer, use Erase personal data instead.
Bulk delete skips the blocked ones silently. The bulk action deletes only the profiles that can be deleted and leaves the rest in place. Check the count after, or you will think the cleanup finished when 4 profiles are still there.
Deleting is permanent. A deleted profile cannot be restored from the admin. Export the profiles to CSV first if you may need their details later.
Sources
- Managing customers — Shopify's help pages: the delete limits, the single delete steps, and the bulk delete rule that only profiles that can be deleted go.
- Processing customer data requests — Shopify's help pages: erasing personal data as the route for a customer with orders.