It’s the weekend, and I have a couple hours before the kiddo shoots out of bed like a Looney Tunes rocket. Which is always a nice, quiet time to have a little coffee and do a little work.
Just some work…. not work work. I am not doing regular week work on the weekend. Usually I will work on something fun like writing a comic, but since we are mousing around for 30 days, I think some housecleaning would be good…
So we are going to head to the Shopify Admin > Settings > Apps
To quote the little kiddo, “That could be fun…”
Laying bare a screenshot of your apps feels so personal. I know you are going to judge me. But whatever, let’s see what we got. And to be clear, this little project is something that I have needed to do for a while. I recently removed an expensive app (it was made redundent by Mouse Whisperer), and thought that I should take inventory and just see what I can cut.
Withouth Further ado…
That is 31 apps… lets take inventory
Shopify Apps (Native apps made by Shopify)
Forms
Messaging
Search & Discovery
Flow
Collabs
Simgym
Knowledge Base
Shopify Graph QL
Order Printer
Bundles
Actually used Shopify Apps
Forms — good for simple pops and forms; limited but solid
Messaging — email marketing sans the predatory pricing; good editor, clunky automation. Start app, not for someone who’s job title is “email marketer”
Search & Discovery — Necessary for all stores; controls filters and recommended/complimentary products
Flow — Necessary; I should use this more. It’s powerful and these guys get into the nitty gritty on the Unofficial Shopify Podcast.
Knowledge Base — Set up because everyone was barking about AI and I thought ok why not, let’s add words there and…. then lost interest (if anyone else knows more about this app or wtf I need it for… please, share it with the class!)
Shopify Graph QL — if you like your data raw…
Unused Shopify Apps
Collabs — it is like all influencer networking apps: solid tech, shitty shitty shitty product. I effing hate influencers and influencer marketing.
Simgym — Stupidest app that Shopify has ever made. Almost comical to watch it throw up insights based on synthetic users.
Order Printer — We stopped using it in favor of the shipstation templates.
Bundles — We are about to add bundles on the store, so this one might move to the list above in a couple months.
Vibe-coded Shopify Apps
Alt Texter
Media Files Editor
It was back in February when I made these. There was another one I made too but it was deleted. I don’t remember what it was for though.
But I clearly remember why I made them.
We were under attack
When this feature in their ai Sidekick was released, I think we all tried it out. And if you did try it, I would love to hear about it.. comment or email me
So I would have tried it out anyway, but the reason that these 2 apps were made was because of one of those frivolous ADA lawsuits.
If you haven’t been through one, here is the lowdown.
Shitty Lawyers
Apparently the firm behind out suit had filed +1000 lawsuits. And their tactic was simple. Automate the filings, scare you, get you to settle. They were looking for a $7500 settlement.
That number is not so scary. I mean, it would completely fuck over a small Shopify store still struggling to get off the ground, but they don’t go after those sties. They wait until you are bringing in a certain amount of revenue or traffic (I don’t know what they track exactly, this is my assumption), and then slap you with one.
ADA Compliance
Trying to make your website accessible to everyone is a good thing. The things we need to do better as website developers for accessibility is not very visible.
Alt Text on images helps screen readers and their users to understand your products better. That is great and easy to do, in theory, but in practice, it can be a huge undertaking. Especially if you didnt take the images yourself… or if you inherited a store, and no one added any Alt Text, you gotta go one by one?
Matrixfy
Best and most used app for bulk editing. You export what you need into a spreadsheet, and then you can edit them easily. Import the file back into Shopify via Matrixify again and it syncs up the changes. Doneskies.
Great for migrations and saving your ass.
I once cleaned up a mess of a blog with great results, but a year later, the company couldn’t find several old blogs that were needed for something different. There was no backup anywhere. The blog was the backup. Fortunately, I used Matrixify and had ALL of those old and deleted blog posts in an excel file… so after the oh shit moment, everything turned out fine.
Media Cleanup
This was an app I found to help with the Alt Text. It helped me get through a lot of files.
I only used it for that month though before downgrading. Well worth the $14.99. Some apps are for projects and not for an on-going need. I wish there were a way for apps like that to have a separate billing type so you dont have to subscribe and then uninstall or downgrade.
So yeah, we were supposed to be talking about the vibe-coded Alt Texter and Media File Editor apps that shopify’s Sidekick shittily made.
I tried to open them to get a screenshot, but its saying I don’t have permissions, even thought I made them…?
Whatever. Shopify Sidekick has never NOT let me down. So not surprised.
This is not over!!!
I have more apps to get to, but my coffee is cold, and little duders just got up. So let’s pick this back up another day… I gotta jet…
Until tomorrow
- shep