Shopify Legacy Customer Accounts Deprecated: What to Fix Now

Legacy customer accounts are deprecated. New stores are pushed onto the latest customer account model, and the older Liquid account templates are no longer a safe base for a customer portal you expect to keep for years.

Shopify's February 2026 developer update says legacy accounts are no longer available to new stores or to existing stores that are not already using them, that feature updates and technical support for the older version will stop, and that a final sunset date will be announced later in 2026. Plan for it this year.

The short answer

Audit your account flow now if the store uses customer account Liquid templates, a custom login page, Multipass, a headless password flow, customer-specific pricing, warranty forms, a returns portal, loyalty widgets, B2B account logic or app-powered account pages. The latest model is built around extensions and the API, so old theme assumptions can break during a theme upgrade, a new store launch or the account migration itself.

What changed

• ✓Legacy customer accounts are deprecated and no longer the default for new stores
• ✓Legacy account Liquid files will eventually be locked from editing and later removed
• ✓Customer-scoped data and authenticated customer actions are moving to the Customer Account API
• ✓Customer account UI extensions are the supported way to customise account pages
• ✓A May 2026 preview introduced a narrower single-column account layout, which changes how extensions sit on desktop and mobile
• ✓For Shopify Plus, checkout, sign-in and customer account branding are being brought together under the Checkout And Accounts Configuration API

Where merchants get caught

A simple DTC store with a basic order history page has the least to worry about. The risk is in custom customer journeys: trade portals, subscription management, post-purchase support, customer-specific documents, repair requests, warranty registrations, gated product access, wholesale rules, and headless storefronts that still rely on the older customer access token pattern.

A theme can look fine on the storefront while the account flow underneath is fragile. The account link still works, but the old login expectations, custom fields, redirects and app embeds may not map cleanly onto the new account surface.

What to audit before changing themes or account settings

• ✓List every account entry point: header, footer, order emails, app links, custom landing pages and support links
• ✓Check whether the theme still carries customisations in customers/account.liquid, customers/login.liquid or customers/register.liquid
• ✓Identify apps that inject content into account pages or depend on legacy account sessions
• ✓Map every customer-specific feature: pricing, downloads, warranty data, returns, loyalty, subscriptions, saved addresses and B2B logic
• ✓Test login, order history, reorder, returns, address changes and customer support flows on mobile
• ✓For Plus stores, decide whether checkout, customer accounts and sign-in branding should now be managed together
• ✓For headless stores, check whether your auth flow depends on legacy Storefront API customer mutations

What the migration work involves

A clean migration usually needs account-flow QA, extension compatibility checks, app behaviour testing, theme link updates, analytics events and a fallback plan for flows that cannot be rebuilt one-to-one. Plus and headless stores may also need Customer Account API work and a decision on the identity provider.

"Treat customer account migration like a checkout-adjacent project. It touches trust, support load, repeat purchase behaviour and post-purchase conversion."

— Thought Bulb