Shopify’s app store has countless apps that Shopify store owners can use to boost sales, improve functionality, and more. However, like everything else, some Shopify apps can become outdated. Technologically advanced apps featuring powerful tech like artificial intelligence are being released daily.
How do you delete old apps that have stopped serving you? What benefits do you stand to enjoy from deleting Shopify apps? Learn about this and more below.
Importance of Removing Unused Apps from a Shopify Store
1. Improved Shopify store loading speed: First and foremost, unused third-party apps are bound to slow down your site speeds. Since apps run multiple files and scripts that are beyond your control, removing them will boost site performance.
Deleting apps on your online Shopify store ultimately reduces the code that your store needs to process, resulting in higher loading speeds. However, the deletion must be done conclusively to ensure the code isn’t left behind.
2. Improved user experience: A good site speed ultimately results in a good user experience. Online shoppers have a very low attention span today, averaging 8 seconds or less for most people today. A slow site that makes all site pages load slowly will ultimately result in issues like abandoned carts and a high bounce rate.
3. Lower costs: Unused apps remove unnecessary app subscription charges and other usage-based costs, allowing you to deploy resources to other areas like marketing or other useful apps that have a direct impact on the bottom line.
4. Time and resource savings: Having fewer apps to manage frees time, energy, and other resources that are involved in app management. For instance, staff involved in app management can be deployed to other tasks.
How to Uninstall Apps and Stop Paying for Shopify Apps?
There are clear reasons to remove an app in Shopify. So, how do you proceed? Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to delete apps from Shopify;
Step 1. Assessing and Preparing for App Deletion
The first and most important consideration to make is check if the app is boosting your revenue. You need a very good reason to uninstall an app that is making you money (after deducting charges such as subscription). A quick assessment over the period the app has been active should let you know if to delete it or not.
Assessment should involve multiple apps. Evaluate the profitability of multiple apps as well as their usefulness, relevancy, or necessity to the current business needs. Unused apps that don’t make any money should be up for deletion.
Remember to check the app’s billing cycle when preparing to delete. Shopify stores support apps with two main types of billing cycles i.e., recurring and usage pricing cycles. Deleting apps with recurring pricing doesn’t automatically mean you will stop being charged monthly after deleting the app.
Apps with a usage pricing billing cycle only bill when the app is used, so you don’t have to worry about such apps. As a result, apps that you may want to use but don’t want to pay for should have a favorable billing cycle.
It also helps to see if there are any billing terms outside Shopify. Some app developers may have app subscriptions that need to be cancelled outside Shopify. While uncommon, it’s important to check if you must go to the developer’s site to cancel the subscription.
Lastly, it’s prudent to check if deleting an app will break code in your site’s theme files causing problems like slow speeds and corrupt files. Deleting apps can cause other issues with store styling. You should assess if the app in question will cause such problems with deleting. As a precautionary measure, you should backup store data before uninstalling.
Step 2. Delete Relevant Scripts From Your Theme
In many cases, app-related assets or code snippets are added to the layout or theme. It’s, therefore, advisable to avoid uninstalling directly by clicking “delete” on the Shopify admin dashboard. Instead, you should delete relevant scripts from your theme before you uninstall an app.
Note: If you are not a professional programmer, please do not try to clean up leftover code on your own. That’s because your theme may be ruined when you mistakenly delete the useful scripts/codes!
But how? Here we suggest that you should look for the support page of the app you want to delete and check if it lists the guide to uninstall the app
In our case, that’s Candy Rack. Scroll down on the Shopify App Store page of Candy Rack app. Go to Help Ceter and search for the guide to uninstall the app.
Then just follow the guide to delete any Candy Rack scripts/codes.
Step 3: Contact App Support(Optional)
If you cannot find the guide to unistall the app properply, contact app customer support and ask them to delete any leftover code. Once done, you can proceed to the Shopify admin dashboard to delete the app.
Step 4: Deleting from Admin Dashboard
Your Shopify store theme is now free of APP codes/scripts. Deleting from admin dashboard is as simple as clicking on uninstall
Confirm uninstall and reason for uninstalling. You’ll get a confirmation message.
Step 5:Testing and Verifying Store Functionality
Once you’ve deleted your Shopify app and cancelled your app subscription properly, you need to test and verify that your store is still functioning properly. Do the following;
Begin by testing your site thoroughly to ensure all aspects are working perfectly. Verify everything from carts to checkout and navigation functionality. Finish by testing for any broken links, missing elements, or inconsistencies.
Conclusion
If you delete Shopify apps, can you still be charged? Yes! This happens if you don’t handle the process properly. There’s a proper way to remove Shopify apps. While you may simply be tempted to click uninstall on your Shopify admin, this won’t get rid of code/files that can slow your site speed and compromise overall customer experience.
Our guide above details how to delete Shopify apps properly without compromising site function and exposing yourself to additional charges in the future.