Choose where the widget appears
Limit the chat widget to certain devices and pages, test a page address before you save, and fix rules that do not behave as expected.
Display settings decide where the chat widget is allowed to appear. Everything else you set up, colors, welcome message, starter questions, stays exactly the same on the pages where the widget does show.
Open Widget → Appearance for the selected agent and choose the Display tab. In the Shopify app, open Customize and choose the Display tab.
In the Shopify app, the Display tab also holds two settings that change how the widget presents itself on the pages where it appears:
- Display style — choose Chat bubble for a classic button in the corner, or Agent search bar for a search box at the bottom centre of the page with a larger answer window.
- Citations — turn Show source citations on to list the pages an answer was based on underneath each reply.
Starter questions moved to the Look & feel tab in the Shopify app, where you can still add up to six of them.
Changes save automatically in the dashboard. In the Shopify app, select Save in the bar at the top.
Display devices
Pick who sees the widget:
- All devices — everyone. This is the default.
- Desktop only — hidden on phones and small tablets. Useful when your mobile pages are already crowded.
- Mobile only — shown on phones and small tablets, hidden on larger screens.
"Mobile" means a screen narrower than 768 pixels, plus touch-first tablets. If a visitor rotates their tablet or resizes their browser window across that line, the widget appears or disappears straight away. They do not need to reload the page.
Display pages
Pick where the widget appears:
- Show on all pages — everywhere the widget is installed. This is the default.
- Show on specific pages — only on pages that match one of your rules.
- Hide on specific pages — everywhere except pages that match one of your rules.
Writing a rule
Each rule has a match type and a page address:
| Match type | Matches when the page address... |
|---|---|
| URL contains | includes what you typed anywhere in it |
| URL is exactly | is exactly what you typed |
| URL starts with | begins with what you typed |
| URL ends with | ends with what you typed |
You can type a short path such as /checkout, or paste a full address such as https://yourstore.com/checkout. Both work, so use whichever is easier to read later.
Matching ignores capital letters and a trailing slash, so /Cart, /cart and /cart/ are all the same page. You do not need * wildcards; the match type already covers them, and any you type are ignored.
You can add up to 50 rules. If two rules end up identical, only one is kept.
A page only needs to match one rule. Rules never cancel each other out.
Test a page address before you save
Under the rules in the dashboard there is a Test a page URL box. Paste any address from your site and it tells you, for desktop and for mobile, whether the widget would show there and which setting is stopping it. Use this whenever a rule does not do what you expected: it is faster than opening your live site and guessing.
Common setups
- Keep chat off checkout. Choose Hide on specific pages and add a rule: URL contains
/checkout. - Support only in the help centre. Choose Show on specific pages and add a rule: URL starts with
/help. - Hide chat on your homepage only. Choose Hide on specific pages and add a rule: URL is exactly
/. - Phone shoppers only. Set Display devices to Mobile only and leave the page setting on Show on all pages.
What visitors experience
The rules are checked in the visitor's browser every time they arrive on a page, and again whenever they move to another page on your site. On sites that change pages without a full reload, the widget still appears and disappears correctly as the visitor navigates.
If a visitor has a chat open and then goes to a page where the widget is hidden, the chat closes. Their conversation is not lost; it is waiting in their chat history the next time the widget shows.
Troubleshooting
The widget still shows everywhere after I picked a page setting. You have not added a rule yet. A page setting with no rules deliberately does nothing, so the widget is never switched off by accident. Add at least one rule and the setting takes effect. The dashboard shows a warning while this is the case.
My rule does not match the page I expected.
Paste the exact address into the Test a page URL box. The most common causes are a typo, a query string you did not expect (for example ?variant=123), or using URL is exactly where URL starts with is what you meant. URL contains is the most forgiving option if you are unsure.
The widget disappeared from my own site after I saved. Check the Display devices setting: Desktop only hides it on your phone, and Mobile only hides it on your laptop. The live preview in the customizer always shows the widget so you can keep editing, even when your rules would hide it on the page you are looking at.
I set Mobile only and it still shows on my tablet. Touch tablets count as mobile. If you want tablets excluded, use Desktop only instead, or narrow the pages with a page rule.
Nothing changed on my live site. Give it a moment and reload the page: visitors pick up new rules on their next page view. If it still looks wrong, confirm you are editing the same agent that is installed on that site.
Someone on my team removed my rules. Anyone with permission to edit widget settings can change display rules. The change is recorded in your account's activity log with who made it.