Key takeaways
- To delete a section, click it in the left sidebar, then click the trash icon (Remove section).
- Deletion is permanent within your current theme save - you can’t undo after saving.
- Hiding a section is safer than deleting - it removes it from view but keeps it in the editor.
- Always duplicate your theme before making structural changes so you have a restore point.
- If you accidentally delete content you need, a theme duplicate is your only reliable recovery option.
Deleting sections in Shopify takes seconds. Getting the content back after an accidental deletion takes significantly longer. Read this before you delete.
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.
Before you delete - duplicate your theme
If you’re making structural changes to your theme, duplicate it first. This creates a backup you can restore at any point.
Online Store > Themes > (three-dot menu on your theme) > Duplicate.
This takes about 30 seconds and gives you a complete restore point. If you delete a section and regret it, you can recover everything from the duplicate.
How to delete a section in the Theme Editor
Step 1. Go to Online Store > Themes > Customize.
Step 2. Navigate to the page containing the section you want to remove.
Step 3. In the left sidebar, click the section to select it and open its settings.
Step 4. Scroll to the bottom of the section settings panel. Click Remove section (it may show a trash icon).
Step 5. The section disappears from the sidebar and the preview immediately.
Step 6. Click Save to make the removal permanent.
If you change your mind before saving: press Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z on Mac) to undo, or simply refresh the page without saving - the section will reappear.
Consider hiding instead of deleting
Hiding a section removes it from your published storefront but keeps it in the Theme Editor. You can bring it back at any time.
How to hide a section:
- Click the section in the left sidebar.
- Look for the eye icon at the top of the settings panel, or a visible/hidden toggle.
- Click it to hide. The section turns grey in the sidebar and disappears from your live store.
When hiding is better than deleting:
- You’re not sure if you’ll want the section back.
- The section has content you spent time writing or configuring.
- You’re testing how a page looks without the section.
When deleting makes sense:
- You’re certain the section is no longer needed.
- You’ve already duplicated your theme.
- You want a clean sidebar without hidden sections cluttering it.
Related: Reorder Sections on a Shopify Page.
Related: Hide a Section on Mobile in Shopify.
Related: Hide Content on Mobile in Shopify.
Can you delete the header or footer?
No. The header and footer are fixed global sections. The Theme Editor doesn’t allow you to delete them - there’s no Remove section option on these elements.
You can edit their content, hide individual elements within them, or modify their layout. But the sections themselves stay.
What happens to section content when you delete?
When you delete a section, all the content inside it is gone - the text, images, block settings, everything configured in that section.
If you’ve spent time writing copy for a features section or configuring a custom layout, that work is lost unless you have a theme duplicate.
This is why hiding is often the safer first step.
Recovering a deleted section
If you saved after deleting and want to recover:
Option 1 - Restore from theme duplicate. If you duplicated your theme before the deletion, go to Online Store > Themes, find your duplicate, click Customize, and check what was there. You can manually copy the content back or publish the duplicate and redo any newer changes.
Option 2 - Add the section back manually. Click “Add section” in the Theme Editor sidebar and add the same section type again. You’ll need to re-enter all the content.
There’s no automatic revision history for theme content in Shopify’s standard editor.
What is the difference between snippets and sections in Shopify?
Sections are modular layout blocks you manage in the Theme Editor — hero banners, feature grids, testimonials. They’re configurable without code and appear in the left sidebar when customising.
Snippets are reusable chunks of Liquid/HTML code that developers include across multiple template files. They don’t appear in the Theme Editor and can’t be deleted or rearranged from there. Snippets are edited in the code editor (Online Store → Themes → Actions → Edit code → Snippets folder). If you’re trying to remove something you can’t find in the Theme Editor, it may be coming from a snippet — or from a leftover app script.
FAQ
Not via Shopify's UI — there's no revision history in the standard Theme Editor. Recovery options: restore from a duplicated theme (if you made one before deleting), use the GitHub integration if your theme is version-controlled, or rebuild the section — describe the section you lost to Fudge and it recreates it from your description. Duplicating the theme before structural changes remains the safest habit.
The header and footer are global sections that can't be deleted — Shopify enforces this since the storefront needs them. Other "fixed" sections (the main product section on a product page, the main collection section on a collection page) also can't be removed because they're required by the template. You can hide them or remove individual blocks within them.
Only if the section contained content that ranked or carried internal links. A hero banner with a CTA button has no SEO impact when removed. A long-form FAQ section that was indexed and ranking would. Audit before deleting: check Google Search Console for the page's queries to see if any traffic comes from content inside that section.
Deleting removes the section and its content permanently from the theme. Hiding removes it from the live storefront but keeps it in the Theme Editor with all settings preserved — you can unhide it later. Hide for "I might want this back"; delete for "this is permanently gone." Hiding is reversible without effort; deletion is not.
Marginally, on the affected pages. Removing rendering logic for a hidden section can shave a few KB and speed up template rendering, but the difference is rarely measurable. Speed gains come more from removing apps and unused JavaScript than from deleting Theme Editor sections.
Related: Rebuild Your Shopify Homepage.