Quickstart

What this tool is for

If your products are already tagged in Shopify (with things like silk, color-pumpkin, mesh-13) and you want those tags to also fill in their matching metafields — this tool does that. You give it a Shopify product CSV export, it reads the tags, and it gives you back a CSV you can re-import to populate the metafields in bulk.

You don't need to handle CSV column names, semicolon-separated values, or any of Shopify's import formatting yourself — the tool takes care of that.

What you'll need

A product CSV export from Shopify. To get one:

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Products.
2. (Optional) Filter to just the products you want to update — by collection, type, tag, or search. Skipping this step exports your whole catalogue, which is fine but slower.
3. Click Export → All products (or Filtered products if you filtered).
4. Click Export products. Shopify will email you a .csv file. Download it.

First time only

If your team has handed you a mapping.json file (likely from your team lead or whoever administers your Shopify metafields), import it before processing your first CSV:

1. Open the Metafield Updater.
2. Find Step 2 — Mapping. It probably says Default mapping with some counts.
3. Click Edit ▾.
4. Click Import JSON, pick the file you were given.
5. The row will now say Saved mapping with the new counts. You're set.

If you haven't been given a mapping file, the tool ships with a default that should match your store. If metafield columns come out blank in the output, see If something looks off below.

The standard run

Each time you want to update product metafields from tags:

1. Export the products from Shopify. See What you'll need above.
2. Open the Metafield Updater. It's the first tool on the home page, or the Updater link at the top of any page.
3. Drop your CSV onto the box that says "Drag & drop a CSV here". (Or click it to browse.)
4. Glance at Step 2 — Mapping. The label should say Saved mapping if you've imported one previously, or Default mapping if you're using the built-in. If anything looks off, click Edit ▾ to inspect.
5. Click Process & Download CSV. A new file will download — typically named <your-export>_metafields.csv.
6. Open the Import Previewer. Drop both your original export and the new file into it. It'll show you exactly which products and which fields will change. Sanity-check a few rows.
7. If everything looks right, import to Shopify. Go to Products → Import → Upload CSV, choose the new file, and click Upload and continue → Import products.

A standard run takes a few minutes for a small batch, a bit longer for a full catalogue.

If something looks off

• A metafield column is blank when it shouldn't be. Your mapping is probably out of date or missing an entry. See Managing the Mapping in the reference docs.
• Same tag is spelled differently across products (e.g., some use fiber-silk, others use silk). Run the Tag Renamer to normalise tags first, then re-export and run the Updater.
• You want to see every tag in use across your catalogue. Use the Tag Inspector — it splits tags into mapped (in your mapping) and unmapped (not in your mapping).
• The output CSV looks wrong but you can't tell why. Don't import it. Open the Import Previewer to compare against the original, or fix the mapping and re-run.

Where to learn more

The reference documentation covers everything in more depth: how the mapping is structured, what each column in the output CSV does, and what to check before importing.