Persistent Cart — Setup & Testing Guide

01 — Before you start

Requirements

A Shopify store on any plan (the Free app plan is enough to run and test the core feature).
Customer accounts enabled. Cross-device sync only works for logged-in customers. Set this under Settings → Customer accounts.
An Online Store theme where the App embed can be enabled (any Online Store 2.0 theme).

Platform limit

Guest (not-logged-in) carts are stored locally on the device and cannot sync across devices. This is a Shopify constraint, not an app limitation — cross-device restore requires a registered, logged-in customer.

02 — Two minutes

Installation

Persistent Cart activates from your Shopify Admin. No code, no developer. Two steps: install the app, then enable its Theme App Embed.

Install the app from the Shopify App Store listing and approve the requested access. You land in the embedded admin dashboard. The default plan is Free.
Enable the Theme App Embed (required). Go to Online Store → Themes → Customize → App embeds, toggle on “Persistent Cart”, then Save.
Done. Carts now persist for logged-in customers, and the “Share this Cart” button appears on the cart. Setup takes under 60 seconds.

This step is mandatory

Without the App embed enabled, no functionality runs — no persistence, no share button. If something isn't working, check the embed toggle first.

Get started

Your plan is Free by default. No payment is needed to use cart persistence.

Go to Online Store, then Themes, then Customize, then App embeds.
Turn on "Persistent Cart" in the App embeds list.
Click Save.

Once saved: logged-in customers keep their cart across devices, and a "Share this Cart" button appears on the cart.

Not working? Check these in order:

Is the App embed turned on? Without it, nothing runs: no cart persistence, no share button.
Is the customer logged in? Guest carts are saved on the device only and cannot sync across devices. This is a Shopify platform limit, not something the app controls.

03 — Optional

Configuration

Defaults work out of the box. To customize, open the app's Settings page in the embedded admin. Settings are saved to your shop and read by the storefront automatically.

Setting	What it does	Plan
Cart conflict modal	When a shared cart meets an existing cart, show a Merge / Replace / Cancel dialog instead of auto-merging.	All plans
Share cart icon	Show the share button and pick its style (link / share / cart icon).	Pro+
Redirect to checkout	Send the customer straight to checkout after a cart is restored.	Paid
Cart expiry	How long an inactive saved cart is kept (7 / 14 / 30 / 60 days). Free is fixed at 2 days.	Paid
Custom CSS classes	Hook the share button and conflict modal into your theme styles.	Pro+

04 — Verify it works

Testing

Cross-device persistence

Log in as a customer on the storefront and add a few products to the cart.
Open the store on a second device or browser, logged in as the same customer, with an empty cart.
Load any page. The saved cart is restored automatically and the page reloads with the items back.

Share this Cart

On the cart page or cart drawer, click “Share this Cart” (next to Checkout). A short link is copied to the clipboard.
Open that link in another browser. A “Merging your cart…” overlay appears and the items are added.
If you already had items and the conflict modal is on, the Merge / Replace / Cancel dialog appears.

05 — Shopify App Review

For reviewers

The short version of what to test and where to look. Core features are on the Free plan — no charge needed to review them.

Install and open the embedded admin (dashboard). Plan defaults to Free.
Enable the App embed: Online Store → Themes → Customize → App embeds → Persistent Cart → Save. Required for any behavior.
Cross-device test: log in as a customer, add to cart, then reopen on a second browser as the same customer — the cart restores.
Share test: click “Share this Cart”, open the link elsewhere, watch the merge overlay and (with the modal on) the conflict dialog.
Admin surfaces: Settings, Analytics, Activity and Pricing pages live inside the embedded app.

Video 1 — Install & enable the App embed

Video 2 — Customer experience: sync & share

06 — Compliance

Data & privacy

Zero personally identifiable information. The app stores only anonymous cart tokens, product variant IDs, quantities, the shop domain and timestamps. No names, no emails.
GDPR webhooks implemented: customers/data_request, customers/redact, shop/redact.
Retention: inactive saved carts are purged automatically (2 days on Free, configurable on paid plans).
Full policies: Privacy · Terms · Cookies.