A rule says: when an order looks like this, then change what the customer can do with it. You write it as a sentence. For example: when the shipping country is the United States and the order tag is wholesale, take away Cancel order.

Without rules, every order follows your tool settings and your edit window. A rule changes that for the orders it matches, and only for those.

Editing Tools → Rules. On the Editing Tools page, Rules is a button at the top and a card in the list. Click Create rule to write one.

The Rules page lists every rule with its type, status, a one-line When and a one-line Then. You can search by name and filter by status, type and the date the rule was created.

A rule can only make an order stricter. It never gives a customer something your settings refuse. It does three things, in any mix:

A rule needs at least one of these. A rule with none cannot be saved.

Only you see it. Up to 80 characters.

Choose Customer editing (this article) or Order merging (see the end of this article). You choose it once, on a new rule. After the first save it cannot be changed.

Each line has three parts: What to check, How, and a value. Every line must be true for the rule to match an order. A rule with no lines matches every order, and the page says so. You can have up to 10 lines.

On Order tags, matching ignores capital letters and extra spaces, so a line for `Wholesale` also matches an order tagged `wholesale`. Other lines match what you picked exactly. A line about something Tacey cannot read for an order never matches that order. Values come from pickers over your real countries, tags, shipping rates and sales channels, so you pick something your orders actually carry. Lines you leave without a value are left out when you save, and the page tells you how many.

When a rule takes a tool away, you can write a message the customer reads on that tool. Plain text, up to 200 characters, for example Orders to the US are final once placed. Leave it empty and the customer sees Tacey's standard message. A message longer than 200 characters is refused, never cut.

On a saved rule you can also Switch off (kept, but nothing uses it), Switch on again, or Delete rule. A draft can be switched on, an active rule can be switched off, and an off rule can be switched on again. A rule cannot go back to Draft, and Deleted is final.

You can have up to 50 rules switched on and up to 200 rules in all.

A tool you took away is not offered on a matching order. Where the tool would have been, the customer sees that the action is not available, then your message if you wrote one, or Tacey's standard line to reply to their order confirmation email if you wrote none. Orders the rule does not match are untouched.

Tacey checks the rules each time the customer opens their order page and again when they try to save a change, so a rule you switch on applies from the next visit, including to orders already placed.

The page tells you when the rule you are writing overlaps another one that is on.

When a rule that adds a tag matches an order, Tacey adds the tag to that order in Shopify with Shopify's own add tags action, which only adds. It never replaces the tags already on the order, and Tacey reads the order back afterwards to confirm the tag is really there.

Tacey tells you in the notification bell, once for each rule and each order:

A rule that is on could not add its tag to order #1042. Tacey tries again each time the customer opens their order page. Open the rule and check its tag (Shopify allows up to 40 characters and no commas), or add the tag to the order in Shopify yourself.

Click Open rule to go to it. Tacey keeps trying on every visit, so a short Shopify outage corrects itself without you doing anything.

Every warning appears beside the rule while you type, not after you save. Three stop you switching the rule on (you can still save it as a draft):

The others tell you the rule will do nothing, or less than you expect:

Your Restrictions list is checked against your rules too. If you add an order-tag restriction for every tool, and a rule that is on already adds that tag, Tacey refuses to save the list and says on that row:

This would lock your customers out. A rule that is on (…) adds the tag … to orders, and this restriction refuses every tool on orders with that tag. Nothing was saved. Take the tag off the rule, or remove it from this restriction, then save again.

If Tacey cannot read your rules at that moment, it refuses too (Tacey could not read your rules just now… Nothing was saved to your restrictions), because it cannot prove the list is safe. A restriction that applies only to some tools is not a lockout and is saved.

Every save that changes something writes a new version, listed at the bottom of the rule as Version 3: Active, Oct 8, 2026. A save that changes nothing says Nothing changed, so no new version was written.

Delete rule asks you to confirm. The rule stops applying straight away. Its history stays for your records, and it cannot be undone.

All three stop customers editing orders. They are for different jobs.

Use Restrictions for "this kind of order is never editable". Use a rule when the answer depends on more than one thing, or when you want a shorter window or a tag rather than a block. A rule only ever tightens what your settings already allow.

Choose Order merging under Where does this apply? to write a rule about which orders merging may include. It reads the same lines, plus Shipping province or state, Customer tags and Order age in minutes (is at least or is at most). Choose whether it applies to Smart Suggest or Automatic merging. You can add one optional tag to the order that is kept, after a successful automatic merge.

Check against my orders shows which pairs the rule would include right now from your real orders, and changes nothing. A rule only narrows: an order must already be safe to merge, which means paid in full, not shipped, from the same customer, in the same currency, with no money still to settle, and placed in the last 60 days. As of October 2026, Smart Suggest lists every safe pair and does not read rules yet; the page says so beside the rule.

I switched a rule on and nothing changed. Read the notes under the rule. It may match every order, match none, remove a tool that is already off, set a window longer than your store's, or only match a channel Tacey never edits. Then open an order that matches in the customer's order page, since rules are checked when the page opens.

My rule adds a tag but the order has none. The tag is added when the customer opens their order page. Check the bell for a message about the rule, and check the tag is 40 characters or fewer with no comma.

The tag I removed came back. The rule still matches, so it adds the tag again the next time the customer opens their order page. Switch the rule off or change its lines to stop that.

Can a rule make the window longer? No. A rule only shortens it.

Can a rule take away Contact support? No.

Does a rule change an order that is already edited? It applies to the next thing the customer tries. It never undoes a change already made.