1. Add a filter in Search & Discovery
According to the Shopify Help Center, the Search & Discovery app creates filters that let customers refine which products are shown on collection pages and in search results. Only filters that can apply to the products on the page are displayed.
Values from different filters are combined with “and”, so choosing Red in Color and 8 in Size returns products that are both. Values within the same filter are combined with “or” by default. You can also move empty filter values to the bottom of the list or hide them.
- In your Shopify admin, go to Apps > Search & Discovery.
- Click Filters, then Add filter.
- Click the Source field and choose the filter source. Optionally rename the filter, group or sort its values.
- Click Save and check the filter on a collection page.
2. Which sources you can filter on
Standard filters for Availability, Category, Price, Product type, Tags and Vendor are available to all stores. Custom filters are based on product options such as size or colour, on metafields or on metaobjects.
A filter is only as good as the data behind it. If one product says “Blue” and another “blue”, or the same property sits in tags for some products and in options for others, you get duplicate or incomplete filter values. Decide first which field holds which property.
- Write down the five properties customers narrow down by most often.
- Pick one field for each: product option, metafield or tag.
- Make spellings consistent before you create the filter.
3. Check your theme and know the limits
Filters only appear if your theme supports them. If it doesn't, you can still create filters in the app, but customers won't see them. Shopify says you can check whether your theme supports filtering under Content > Menus in your admin.
Shopify lists several limits: up to 25 filters per store, each source used only once, and at most 100 filter values displayed per filter. Collections with more than 5,000 products don't display filters. On search results, filters and their counts are based on up to the first 1,000 results, and filters are hidden when a search returns more than 100,000 products.
Example
An “All products” collection with 8,000 items shows no filters. Split it into collections under 5,000 products, for example by product type, and the filters appear again.
4. When a separate search is worth a test
For many stores the Search & Discovery filters are enough. If you hit the limits on large collections or search results, or you need your own synonyms and better matches for typos and word parts, a separate search can help. Compare it with a fixed test set before you switch.
Grumeria has no Shopify app. It reads your store's public product data via https://grumeria.com/api/shopify-feed?shop=your-shop.com, without a feed app, and vendor and product type come along as brand and product type. You choose which filters the search window shows in Grumeria and add it to your theme with a small widget.