Checkout

The Checkout lock content type blocks checkout itself, rather than a page or product. It’s the right choice when you need to stop specific customers from completing a purchase — for example, guests without an account, customers missing a required tag, or customers whose email or phone matches a pattern you want to exclude.

Note

Checkout lock uses its own condition builder, separate from the access rules used by every other content type. Rules like Passcode, Secret link, or Date range don’t apply here — checkout has its own set of customer conditions, described below.

Create the lock

1. Open Locks in the app’s navigation.
2. Click Create lock.
3. Give the lock a descriptive name, for example “Block checkout for guests.”

Choose Checkout as the content to lock

4. On the Lock setup tab, in the content picker, select Checkout lock.

Select Checkout lock in the content picker to build a checkout condition.

Choose the product scope

5. Still on the Lock setup tab, a card below the content picker shows which products the lock covers. It starts at All products — “Checkout lock applies to all products.” Click Change to narrow it to specific products instead.

Checkout lock starts covering all products; use Change to narrow the scope.

6. Click the Unlock rules tab to continue.

Build the condition

Caution

Checkout conditions read the opposite way to other locks. For every other content type, an access rule describes who gets through. Here, the panel is called Lock conditions and it describes when the lock applies — in other words, who gets blocked. A condition of “Customer is not logged in” means guests are blocked from checking out.

7. On the Unlock rules tab, the Lock conditions card replaces the standard rule builder. Add a customer condition — each has a type and a rule:

Condition type	Rules available
Customer login	Is logged in / Is not logged in
Customer tag	Has tag / Does not have tag
Customer phone	Is equal to / Is not equal to
Customer email	Is equal to / Is not equal to / Contains

Each condition row has a pencil icon to edit it and a bin icon to remove it.

The Lock conditions card sets when the checkout lock applies.

8. Click Add another condition to add more. Conditions are always combined with AND — as the card says, “All added conditions must be met for this lock to apply.” Adding conditions makes the lock narrower because every condition must match.

Set the error message

9. Below the conditions, edit the Error message a blocked customer sees at checkout. The default is Sorry, this item can't be purchased. Use the language selector on that card to set the message per storefront language.

The Error message is what a blocked customer sees at checkout.

The Preview panel on the right shows a real checkout with your error message in place, so you can see how it reads before saving.

Save

10. Click Save.

Tip

Checkout lock is enforced by Shopify itself at checkout — there’s nothing extra to configure in your theme or the app embed. Once saved, the condition applies the moment a matching customer reaches checkout.

Related docs

• Access rules overview
• Lock behavior overview
• Manage locks