Shopify Geolocation App Removal Explained

Shopify’s Geolocation App Is Being Removed — What It Means for Your Store

Shopify has officially announced that its popular Geolocation app will be sunset and uninstalled from all stores on December 1st, 2024. This major update affects thousands of merchants who’ve relied on the app for automatic currency, language, and market detection across international customers.

The Geolocation app, developed by Shopify, was designed to give customers a popup to confirm their country, currency, and language when visiting a store. It worked by detecting IP addresses and giving shoppers the choice to continue with recommended settings or switch markets. While this feature was helpful, Shopify’s platform has evolved to provide these localizations automatically — no popups required.

According to Shopify’s official changelog, this removal comes as part of ongoing efforts to streamline international selling and reduce reliance on customer consent. The platform now includes built-in tools such as automatic redirection, browser language detection, and GeoIP support (for Shopify Plus users) that perform the same role more efficiently.

To prepare for this change, Shopify recommends that merchants enable these features under Settings → Markets → Preferences. Doing so ensures that your store automatically localizes the experience for visitors based on their domain or browser language, without needing the Geolocation app.

For stores serving the European Union with country-specific top-level domains like .fr or .de, you may still need to use a third-party consent-based localization solution due to EU privacy and cookie laws. Shopify has confirmed this exception directly in the changelog announcement.

This transition highlights Shopify’s larger shift toward Markets-based localization — integrating international selling tools into the platform’s core rather than relying on separate apps. While this change might catch some merchants off guard, it simplifies setup for new sellers and ensures better compatibility moving forward.

If you’re new to Shopify or setting up your first international store, this is a perfect time to learn the new Markets system and get your configurations right from the start. The 30-Day Beginner’s Shopify Program will walk you through the step-by-step setup process and help you build your store the correct way.

Shopify continues to evolve rapidly, and staying updated on these platform changes can make all the difference in keeping your store competitive. You can always find more breakdowns and platform updates at ProfessorCommerce.com, or support ongoing content like this by joining our Patreon community at Patreon.com/ProfessorCommerce.

The Geolocation app may be going away, but better, more integrated localization is on the horizon — making global selling smoother than ever.

Labels: Shopify geolocation app, Shopify app removal, Shopify markets, Shopify localization, Shopify December updates, Shopify international selling

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