Update theme versions while keeping customisations as a Shopify developer

One of the biggest problems as a Shopify developer is updating customised themes to the current version.

Say what? Just click the update button, and you have the new theme 😅

This may be true for themes that are untouched by third-party customisations. But when developers already worked on that theme, all theme customisations will be gone after a theme update.

What is the best way of safely updating an already customised theme?

For now, the only reliable option is to transfer all the old customisations by hand into the updated theme. But you can make your life a little bit easier by using these tools and methods.

𝐓𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬

𝑆ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑖𝑓𝑦 𝐶𝐿𝐼
Let's you easily pull themes on your local machine and therefore be able to compare code changes

𝐺𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑢𝑏 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛
To actually see and compare changes, you need a Git repository for your current theme. I'm recommending GitHub because it offers a native Shopify integration.

𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐝

1. Download the newest version of your theme.
2. Open your current live theme on your local machine with the CLI.
3. Create Github connection (if not already connected).
4. Use 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘧𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘭 and select the freshly added newest version.
5. Go through the changes and adjust the old customizations to fit the new theme version
6. After testing everything, create a backup of live and use 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘧𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮𝘦 𝘱𝘶𝘴𝘩 to push to live.

With this method, you now have the updated theme version, including all your old customisations.

Extra tip: While developing a theme, keep all your theme customisations as separate from the rest of the code as possible. This will make everything much easier 😎

Is this a quick and easy fix? Not really.
Is this the only reliable option for now? Unfortunately, yes!