Shopify Navigation Menu: How to Create and Manage Menus 

A well-structured navigation menu is essential for a smooth shopping experience and better conversions. This Shopify navigation menu setup guide explains how to create, customise, and optimise menus, build dropdowns, add links, and manage URL redirects without hurting SEO. Follow NextSky's step-by-step instructions to create a user-friendly store navigation.

What Is a Shopify Navigation Menu?

A Shopify navigation menu is a structured set of links displayed in your store's header, footer, or sidebar. Each menu is made up of menu items — individual links pointing to products, collections, pages, blog posts, policies, or external URLs.

Shopify supports several menu types:

• Main menu: The primary navigation bar in your store header (Home, Shop, About, Contact)
• Footer menu: Links at the bottom of the page for policies, FAQs, and support
• Dropdown menus: Nested items that expand under a parent link, ideal for large catalogs
• Mega menus: Extended dropdowns with images, multi-column layouts, and rich content (available via apps)
• Customer account menu: Quick access to order history, profile, and settings for logged-in customers

All menus are managed from Content > Menus in your Shopify admin.

How to add a menu item in Shopify

You need to create a page, collection, or product before you can link to it. Once it exists, here's how to add it to a menu:

Steps (Desktop)

• From your Shopify admin, go to Content > Menus.
• Click the title of the menu you want to edit.

• Click Add menu item.
• Enter a Name, this is what customers see in the menu (supports special characters and emojis).

• In the Search or paste a link field, select a link type or paste an external URL.

• Click Add, then click Save or Save menu.

Steps (Mobile — Shopify App)

1. Tap the Menu icon
2. Tap the arrow next to Content, then tap Menus.
3. Tap the menu title, then tap Add menu item.
4. Enter a name and select a destination.
5. Tap Add, then tap Save or the ✓ icon.

Supported Link Types

Important: Avoid pasting a URL directly for internal pages. Instead, select the page from the dropdown list. Manually entering a URL instead of selecting from the dropdown can break the connection and cause a 404 error.

How to edit a menu item in Shopify

Steps (Desktop)

1. Go to Content > Menus.
2. Click the name of the menu containing the item.
3. Click Edit beside the menu item name.
4. Make your changes:
5. Click Apply changes, then Save or Save menu.

Steps (Mobile)

1. Open the Shopify app, tap Menu icon.
2. Tap Contents > Menus.
3. Tap the menu name, then tap Edit beside the item.
4. Make changes and tap Apply changes.
5. Tap Save or ✓.

Note on the 200-change limit: Every add, edit, delete, or reorder action counts as one change. After 200 changes, further actions are blocked until you save. Clicking Save resets the counter. Save frequently.

How to reorder menu items

The order items appear in the Shopify admin is the order customers see them in your store.

Steps (Desktop)

1. Go to Content > Menus.
2. Click the menu title.
3. Click and hold the ⠿ handle icon next to an item.
4. Drag it to the new position.
5. Click Save.

Steps (Mobile)

1. Navigate to the menu in the Shopify app.
2. Tap and hold the ⠿ handle icon.
3. Drag to reorder.
4. Tap Save or ✓.

How to remove a menu item

Warning: Removing a parent menu item also removes all its nested children. If you have a dropdown menu under that parent, every item in it will be deleted too.

Steps (Desktop)

1. Go to Content > Menus.
2. Hover over the item row and click the trash icon.
3. Click Remove to confirm.
4. Click Save.

Steps (Mobile)

1. Navigate to the menu in the Shopify app.
2. Tap Delete beside the item.
3. Tap Remove to confirm, then Save.

How to create a dropdown menu in Shopify

Dropdown menus (also called nested menus) let you group related links under a single parent item for example, "Clothing" expanding into "Men", "Women", and "Kids".

Steps

1. Go to Content > Menus and open your main menu.
2. Choose or add a parent item (this becomes the dropdown header). If you don't want the header to link anywhere, enter # in the link field.
3. Click Add menu item and create the sub-item.
4. After adding the sub-item, drag it beneath and slightly to the right of the parent item to nest it.
5. Repeat for additional sub-items.
6. Click Save menu.

Shopify will display the nested items as a dropdown automatically as long as your theme supports multi-level navigation. If your dropdown isn't appearing, check your theme's documentation to confirm it supports nested menus.

Want more advanced dropdowns?

Shopify's native dropdown is functional but limited. For mega menus with images, multi-column layouts, or animations, these apps are worth considering:

• Qikify Mega Menu & Navigation — Structured layouts for large catalogs
• Globo Mega Menu — Interactive dropdowns with icons and animations
• Meteor Mega Menus — Image-rich, dynamic mega menus
• Buddha Mega Menu — Flexible styling and advanced dropdown options

How to display your menu on the storefront

Creating a menu in Shopify admin doesn't automatically show it on your store, you need to assign it to your theme.

1. Go to Online Store > Themes, then click Customize on your active theme.
2. In the theme editor, select the Header or Footer section.
3. Find the Menu setting and select your menu from the dropdown.
4. Click Save.