Key takeaways
- Go to Online Store > Navigation > click the menu > Add menu item.
- Set the label (text shown in the nav) and the link destination.
- You can link to any page, collection, product, blog, or custom URL.
- To create a dropdown, drag a new item to the right under a parent item.
Adding a new item to your Shopify navigation takes about 30 seconds. Here’s how to do it, plus how to set it up as a dropdown.
Why you can trust us
We’ve built and customised hundreds of Shopify storefronts. We also built Fudge - an AI storefront editor with a 5.0 rating on the Shopify App Store.
How to add a menu item in Shopify
Step 1. In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Navigation.
Step 2. Click the menu you want to add an item to. For most stores, this will be Main menu (header) or Footer (footer).
Step 3. Click Add menu item.
Step 4. Fill in two fields:
- Name - the text that appears in the navigation bar. Keep it short: one or two words.
- Link - where the item takes the customer when clicked.
Step 5. Click Add to add the item to the list.
Step 6. Click Save menu.
The new item appears in your navigation immediately after saving.
Related: Create a New Page in Shopify.
What you can link to
When setting the link for a menu item, Shopify’s link picker shows a searchable list of all your content:
- Pages - About, Contact, FAQ, or any custom page
- Collections - all your product collections
- Products - individual product pages
- Blogs - your blog index pages
- Blog posts - individual articles
- Custom URL - any path or external link you type manually
- No link - useful when the item is a dropdown header with no destination of its own
To link to an external site, type the full URL (including https://) into the link field.
Related: Create a Collection Page in Shopify.
How to create a dropdown menu item
To make a new item appear as a dropdown option under an existing nav item:
Step 1. Add the new menu item as described above.
Step 2. In the menu list, hover over the new item. A drag handle appears on the left.
Step 3. Drag the item to the right and beneath the parent item you want it nested under.
Step 4. Release when the item is indented. It will now appear as a dropdown under the parent.
Step 5. Save the menu.
The parent item must already exist in the menu. If you’re creating a new dropdown category, add the parent item first (you can leave its link blank if it’s just a label), then nest the child items under it.
Related: Create a Dropdown Menu in Shopify.
Related: Edit Navigation Menus in Shopify.
Adding a “Sale” or highlighted item to the nav
A common request is adding a visually highlighted navigation item - like a red “Sale” label or a “New” badge on a specific menu item. The menu item itself is added the same way as any other item.
The styling (colour, bold text, badge) is a separate step:
- Some themes support this natively. Check your Theme Editor > Header section for a “highlight” or “accent” option on nav items.
- If your theme doesn’t have this, it requires a small CSS change to target that specific menu item.
You can describe this to Fudge: “Make the ‘Sale’ item in the main navigation appear in red text with a small badge.”
Related: Reorder Menu Items in Shopify.
Adding items to the footer menu
The footer menu works exactly the same as the main menu. Go to Online Store > Navigation > Footer, and add items following the same steps.
Some themes support multiple footer columns with separate menu handles for each column. If your footer has columns (e.g., “Shop”, “Company”, “Support” columns), check the Theme Editor > Footer section to see which menus are assigned to each column.
What if my new item doesn’t appear in the navigation?
Check two things:
-
Did you save? Click “Save menu” - the change won’t apply until you explicitly save.
-
Is the correct menu assigned to the header? In the Theme Editor > Header section, there’s usually a setting for which menu to use. Make sure it’s pointing to the menu you edited (typically “Main menu” with handle
main-menu).
FAQ
Shopify supports up to three levels of nesting and roughly 250 items per menu in total. Practical limit is usually much lower - more than 7-8 top-level items make the desktop nav cramped, and dropdowns past 10 items become unreadable. If you need more, consider a mega menu instead.
Yes. When adding the item, leave the Link field blank or set it to "No link". The parent acts purely as a label that reveals the dropdown - clicking it does nothing on its own. Useful for category headers like "Shop" or "Resources" where the parent isn't a real destination.
The native nav doesn't support icons per menu item. Cleanest fix: describe what you want to Fudge ("render a Lucide icon next to each main-menu item, mapped by handle") and it edits the header Liquid to render an SVG per item. Quick alternative: use an emoji directly in the menu label ("🔥 Sale"). Some premium themes also expose icon-per-menu-item natively.
Not from the standard menu UI. To force a new-tab open, you'd need to edit the header section's Liquid to add target="_blank" rel="noopener" based on a custom condition (e.g., URL pattern, or a metafield on the menu item). For external links you want opened in a new tab, this is worth the small code change.
In Online Store → Navigation → click the menu → hover any item to see the drag handle on its left → drag up or down to reorder. Drag right to nest as a dropdown under the previous item, drag left to un-nest. Save the menu when done.
