Metafields are where the useful data ends up. A delivery date your storefront collects. An HS code your customs paperwork needs. A batch reference an app writes onto the order the moment it is created. None of it is a standard Shopify field, and all of it matters to whoever receives your file.
Shopify’s built-in order export covers the standard order fields, so metafields are not among the columns it produces. Getting them into a file takes one more step.
Shopify’s order export covers standard fields. Now what?
There is a good reason for it. The built-in export is a fixed report: it returns the same set of standard order columns for every store, and metafields are by definition per-store. Your namespaces and keys are yours, so there is no universal column list that could contain them. The data is in the order and the Admin API returns it, which is exactly what an export tool reads.
Which leaves the same three options as any export gap: build against the API, copy values by hand, or use something that reads metafields and writes them as ordinary columns.
Order metafields or product metafields?
The distinction decides what a row in your file means:
- Order metafields belong to the order as a whole. A requested delivery date, a purchase order number, a reference written by a fulfilment app. One value per order, so it repeats on every line of that order.
- Product metafields belong to the product on a line. Country of origin, HS code, material, supplier reference. On a one row per line item layout each row shows the value for that line’s own product, which is usually the point.
Variant and customer metafields are a third case, and not something we export today.
How do I find a metafield’s namespace and key?
Every metafield is addressed by two parts. In the Shopify admin, go to Settings
then Custom data, choose Orders or Products,
and open the definition. The namespace and key are shown together, usually in the form
custom.delivery_date: custom is the namespace, delivery_date
is the key.
If an app created the metafield, the app’s own documentation is often the faster place to look, and its namespace is usually the app’s name.
Exporting order metafields
In Exportify, order metafields are columns you add yourself, on the Standard and Advanced plans.
- Open Settings and click Refresh Detected Custom Fields. This scans your store once. Do it again whenever you add a new metafield.
- Open the template you want to change, or create a new one.
- In Available Fields, open Detected Order Metafields and click the one you want. It becomes an ordinary column: rename the header, drag it into position, export it in CSV, Excel, XML or delimited text like any other field.
Product metafields work the same way in the file, but they are set up for you rather than picked from a list. Send support the namespace and key and we configure the columns on your template. Full detail is in Export orders with metafields.
Why does a metafield I know exists not appear?
This is the part worth understanding, because the list is not simply everything on your store. Detection finds two kinds of order metafield:
- Those with a definition in Shopify, under Settings then Custom data, whether or not any order currently uses them.
- Those already present on your 250 most recent orders, definition or not.
So a metafield that has no definition and has not been written to an order recently will not be in the list. That combination is more common than it sounds: plenty of apps write metafields without ever creating a definition for them. If one you need is missing, contact support and we will add it for you.
Are metafields the same as line item properties?
No, and confusing the two costs a lot of time. Three different things end up in the same mental bucket:
- Line item properties are captured at checkout and attached to one line. The name on the jersey, the uploaded artwork.
- Order note attributes are captured at checkout and attached to the whole order. A pickup location, a delivery window.
- Metafields are structured data attached by your store or an app, and are not limited to checkout. They can be written or changed long after the order exists.
Line item properties and note attributes are detected automatically on every plan. See exporting line item properties and custom attributes if that is closer to what you are after.
Getting started
If your metafields already have definitions, the whole thing takes about two minutes: refresh, pick the columns, export. Exportify is on the Shopify App Store with a free trial, and if a metafield does not turn up where you expect it, that is what support is for.
