Paste your exported template into Shopify

Once you've found the notification you want to replace, swapping in your own design is really just three moves: export, copy, paste. This guide walks through each one slowly, and flags the two mistakes that trip people up most.

A quick word first: what is HTML?

HTML is the code that tells an email app (like Gmail or Outlook) what to draw on the screen — which words go where, what color the button is, where the image sits. When you “export” a template from Pagenflow, you're really just copying that code so you can paste it somewhere else. You don't need to read or understand it — you just need to copy the whole thing and not lose any of it.

Export your template from Pagenflow

Open your template in the Pagenflow editor and click Export. This copies the finished HTML for your design — grab all of it.

Open Edit code on the notification

Back in Shopify, go to Settings → Notifications, click the notification you're replacing, then click Edit code in the top-right corner.

Notice the two separate boxes

You'll see Email subject (a short line of text) and Email body (HTML) (a big box full of code). They're edited separately — pasting your export only fills the body. If you want a new subject line too, type it into that box by hand.

Select everything in the Email body box

Click inside the Email body (HTML) box and select all of the existing code (Ctrl+A on Windows, Cmd+A on Mac).

Paste your Pagenflow export over it

Paste (Ctrl+V or Cmd+V). Your exported HTML replaces everything that was there before.

Click Preview, then Save

Preview shows you what the email looks like with your changes, without saving yet. Once it looks right, click Save.

Two mistakes to avoid

Mistake 1 — no backup. Before you paste anything, copy Shopify's original code into a blank document and save it somewhere safe. If you ever click “revert to default” later, your customized version is deleted permanently and can't be brought back.

Mistake 2 — saving before confirming your sender email. Shopify won't save changes to a notification until you've confirmed the sender email address under Settings → Notifications. If Save doesn't seem to do anything, that's usually why.

What about Shopify's own code in the old template?

The default template you just replaced had its own logic built in — rules for listing every product in the order, showing the shipping address, and so on. A Pagenflow export is a complete email on its own, so you don't need to merge the old code back in. Instead, you add back only the specific pieces of order information you want — the order number, the customer's name, the shipping address — using short snippets called Liquid variables. The next guide explains exactly what those look like and how to use them.

Continue to Understand Shopify's Liquid variables, or see Shopify's own Customizing email notification templates help page for more background.