Shopify · Online Store 2.0 · Shopify Plus

Make a Shopify store installable — the honest version

Most "Shopify PWA" articles skip the part where Shopify's file hosting makes a proper service worker impossible without an app. This page tells you what you can do from the theme, what you can't, and how to get an installable Android app of your store that keeps Shopify checkout exactly as it is.

Build the Android app → Generate a manifest anyway

The constraint

A service worker must be served from the same origin as the pages it controls, and its scope can't be broader than the directory it lives in. Shopify serves your theme's files from cdn.shopify.com, and the only same-origin paths an app can proxy are /apps/, /a/, /community/ and /tools/. So a service worker can control yourstore.com/apps/… — but not the homepage, collections, products or cart. That is why you cannot make a standard Shopify storefront work offline, and why Shopify's own headless (Hydrogen) storefront is where their PWA story lives.

Question	Answer
Can I add a web app manifest to my Shopify theme?	Yes. Host the manifest and icons in Content → Files, link it from `theme.liquid`. Chrome and Safari will offer add-to-home-screen with your icon and standalone display.
Can I register a service worker for the whole store?	No, not from a theme. Only under the app-proxy paths.
Will Chrome show the "Install app" prompt?	Often yes with just a manifest — Chrome has relaxed its installability criteria — but there will be no offline behaviour and no push from the storefront.
Can I get a Google Play listing?	Yes, with the Android package of the storefront. Not as a Trusted Web Activity, because a TWA needs the PWA underneath.
Do I lose Shopify checkout?	No. Checkout runs inside the app exactly as on the web, including Shop Pay and payment gateways.

Route 1: manifest-only home-screen install

Generate the files with the builder, then use only the manifest and icons:

Upload manifest.json and the icon PNGs in Content → Files. Copy the CDN URLs Shopify gives you.
Edit manifest.json so each icon src is the CDN URL and start_url is https://yourstore.com/. Re-upload.
In theme.liquid, inside <head>, add <link rel="manifest" href="https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/…/manifest.json" crossorigin="use-credentials"> plus an apple-touch-icon link and a theme-color meta.

Result: customers can add the store to their home screen and it opens without browser chrome. No offline, no push. For a store that is mostly browsed on a connection anyway, this is a reasonable, free improvement.

Route 2: an Android app of the storefront

The Android app builder produces an APK (share directly) and an AAB (for Google Play) that open your storefront full-screen with your icon and a branded splash. Because it is a native shell, it can offer what the theme cannot:

Push notifications via OneSignal — restock alerts, order updates, promotions.
An offline screen instead of a browser error when the connection drops.
Native navigation (bottom bar, pull to refresh, exit confirmation) so Google Play sees more than a bare web view.

Payments and Google Play policy. Play requires its own billing only for digital goods and services consumed in the app. A Shopify store selling physical products — or services delivered outside the app — may use Shopify checkout inside the app without restriction. If you sell downloads or subscriptions to digital content, Play Billing rules apply and a web wrapper is not the right vehicle for those items.

Route 3: headless

If you are on Shopify Plus or already building with Hydrogen/Remix on your own domain, you control the root and can deploy the builder's sw.js like any other site — the Webflow page's proxy notes are the closest analogue. This is a development project, not a checkbox, and out of scope for most merchants.

Shopify's own apps, for context

The Shop app lists your store inside Shopify's marketplace app; mobile app builders in the Shopify App Store produce native apps for a monthly fee. Neither is a PWA. They are legitimate options, and the comparison is simple: this site's Android route is free and driven by your live storefront; a builder app costs monthly and gives you native UI; Shop gives you presence in someone else's app.

Frequently asked questions

Why do other sites say Shopify supports PWAs?

They usually mean headless Shopify (Hydrogen), where you host the front end yourself, or they conflate "add to home screen" with a full PWA. From a standard theme, the service-worker part is not possible.

Will Shop Pay work in the Android app?

Yes. Checkout is the same web checkout; Shop Pay, PayPal and card payments behave as in a mobile browser.

Can I publish the Android app on Google Play?

Yes, as an AAB. Add push notifications and the offline screen so the app offers more than a browser does — Play's minimum-functionality policy expects that. Physical-goods checkout through Shopify is permitted.

iPhone users?

Route 1 gives them add-to-home-screen from Safari. The Android package does nothing for iOS; there is no App Store equivalent produced here.