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Your forms

What the index tells you

One card per form, and the card shows what the form looks like. It is an image of the form as you are building it — whether you have published it, paused it, archived it or never published it at all — drawn the same way your storefront draws it. A new form gets its image within seconds of being created.

When you change a form, its card says "Updating" beside the date line while a new image is drawn, and keeps showing the last image until the new one is ready. That takes a few seconds, and the index fills it in without you reloading the page. If you keep editing while the image is being drawn, one more image follows your last change, so the card always catches up with what you built.

A card with a plain gray panel instead of an image is a form whose first image is still being drawn.

The image shows the form on its own, without the page behind it — no dimmed background, no close button, whatever shape the form is. That is so five forms look like five forms rather than five gray rectangles. A shape that runs the full width of a page — a bar, a full-screen panel, an embedded block — is drawn at phone width, because at a card's size its words would otherwise be too small to read.

The form sits at the top of its image, and the image is only as tall as it needs to be. Forms come in shapes a tall frame suits badly — a bar is wide and short, a popup is close to square — so the image area is shallow, and whatever shape your form is it is drawn against the top of it with the name and status directly underneath. That is what lets two rows of forms fit on one screen instead of one.

The whole card is the link. Press the image or the name and you are on that form's page.

Paging. Under the cards you choose how many to show at a time — 25, 50 or 100 per page — and step through with Previous and Next. The line beside them says where you are: Page 3 of 5. Type a number in the box to jump straight to a page. The page you are on is part of the address, so opening a form and coming back puts you back where you were, and the size you choose is remembered the next time you open this screen. Searching or changing the filter takes you back to the first page.

Rename, Clone, Pause, Archive

Every card's ⋮ menu offers the same three things it offers on Templates, and one more that only a form has.

Rename changes the name and nothing else.

Clone makes a copy and takes you to it. A copy is never live. Cloning a form that is on your storefront right now puts nothing extra on your storefront — the copy is a draft, and publishing it is a separate decision you make on purpose. It copies what you are working on, along with the rules about who sees it and when; what it does not copy is the group you may have put the original in to stop two forms showing at once, because a copy quietly joining that group would change what your visitors see.

Pause and Resume are here too, so you never have to open a form to take it off your storefront. A live form is offered Pause, and asks before it does it; a paused form is offered Resume, and puts it straight back — unless it asks for a phone number your store cannot collect yet, when Resume follows the same rule as Publish and says why instead. A form you have not published is offered neither — there is nothing running to stop.

Archive puts a form away when you are done with it. A live form cannot be archived — the menu says so and tells you what to do instead: take it off your storefront first, by pausing it, and then archive it. Archiving is not destroying; switch the filter to Archived to find it again.

Delete vs Archive

Delete appears on a form you have never published and nobody has ever used, and only there. That form has no history worth keeping — nothing was ever on your storefront and nobody ever filled it in — so it is deleted outright, and there is no way back. You are asked to confirm first.

On every other form the menu simply has no Delete, and that is deliberate rather than an oversight. The moment a form has been published, what it collected is part of your customers' records, and the dates and consent on those records point back at the form itself. Archive is the act for those: it takes the form out of your way and keeps what it gathered. So the rule is short — if anyone has ever seen it, you archive it; if nobody ever has, you can delete it.

The fact that matters is Status:

• Draft — you are still working on it. Nobody has seen it.
• Live — it is on your storefront right now.
• Paused — it was live and you stopped it. Everything is still there.
• Archived — you are done with it. It is out of the way, not destroyed.

A form nobody has ever published says Never published rather than showing a date. A live form whose working copy has moved ahead of it wears Changes not published, which is the one badge on this screen that is news.

Archived forms are their own view. They are not in "All forms" — pick Archived from the filter to see them.

Search by name. Type more than one word and every one of them has to match, wherever each of them falls and in any order.

Your search and your filter live in the address bar, so opening a form and coming back puts you exactly where you were.

Starting a form

New form asks for two things, in this order: a place to start from, and then a name.

The starting points come first because that is the decision — the name is what you call what you chose, and the field for it appears once you have chosen.

Three tabs beside the title say where to start: Starting points, Examples and Your forms. Each one shows a few of what is behind it, how many there are and a line about them, and its list opens with anything more worth knowing.

You see the form before you choose it. The tab you are on runs down the left, and the one you pick is drawn on the right — the real form, running the same code your storefront runs, not an image of one. Nothing is chosen when you arrive, so the first thing you do is look.

Your forms are the ones you have already made, most recently edited first, with See all forms for the rest. They are drawn on the right the same way, so you can look at what you already have before you decide. Edit opens the one you are looking at in the editor. To build on one of your own rather than start again, Clone it from the Forms index — that is what makes the copy. The field at the top narrows the tab you are on by name, and on Your forms it searches every form you have made, not only the few most recent ones shown before you type. The one you are looking at stays drawn while you search.

A form is drawn the way it would really appear. Inside a page is drawn as a block the width of the page it would sit in, because that is what an embedded form does — it takes the width of wherever you put it. The others are drawn floating on a page, at the size they would open at, because that is what a popup, a corner card, a bar and a full-screen panel do. Desktop and Mobile above the drawing switch between the two views.

A form with more than one panel can be looked through before you choose it. Press the arrows beside the drawing, or the left and right arrow keys, to go from the first panel to the last; the line under the drawing says which panel you are on and its name.

Then you name it, in the box beside the chosen form's title, and press Create form.

The name is yours, and it is how you find the form again. No visitor is ever shown it on a page — but it is not a private note either. Your theme's Form menu lists your published embedded forms by name, and the theme editor prints the name on the block while you are working in it. Name a form for where it goes.

The starting points are a starting point, not a fixed layout. You can change or throw away every part of every one of them:

• Image on the left — one image next to the words, with everything else in a column beside it. On mobile the image becomes a band above the words.
• Image behind the words — one image fills the whole form, with everything else on top of it. On mobile the image becomes a band above the words, so it is never cropped down to a strip.
• Email, then phone number — two steps. The first asks for the email address, the second asks for a telephone number on a panel of its own, and then the thank-you. It is the shape most stores use when they want both, because somebody who will not give a number still gives an address. The second panel carries its own consent sentence, about text messages rather than email, and it is yours to change like any other. It names your store, says how often you text varies and that message and data rates may apply, and tells people to reply HELP for help or STOP to stop. A form you have already made keeps the sentence it started with; only a new one starts from this. You need text messages enabled, and your number approved, before you can publish this one — see Asking for a telephone number, in the chapter What a form collects.
• Spin to win, Welcome wheel and Email + text wheel — a wheel people spin for a discount when they sign up: the first with a first name and an email address, the second the same for your email list in welcome words, and the third with the email address first and then the wheel beside an optional box for a phone number. Each opens with four prizes waiting for you to choose their discounts. Spin the wheel has the whole of it.
• Inside a page (embedded) — for anywhere a form sits inside a page of your store rather than over it: your footer, under a blog post, partway down a landing page. You add a block in your theme where you want it and pick this form in the block, and it takes the width of wherever you put it. It starts with the fields and the button on one line, the heading above and the consent sentence below; on mobile they go one per line.
• Win-back — for people who once said yes and have since said no. What makes it a win-back is the rules, not the words. Somebody who fills one in is subscribed again — typing their address is the most recent thing they have said — unless that address is in Do not email, which no form can undo. See Consent.
• Blank — the fewest blocks a form can have and still work.

They all ask for a first name as well as an email address, and the first name starts out required. That is a starting position, not a rule: make it optional or remove it whenever you like.

Examples to build from

The Examples tab holds finished sign-up forms: real-looking words, our images, and a design — a popup with a discount code on the thank-you, a corner card that asks for a phone number, a bar across the bottom of every page, a block for the end of a blog post, a form that asks a question first, and more. Each row shows its image, what is in it, and where it appears. Pick one and it is drawn on the right, the way a visitor would see it.

Creating one makes your own copy. It arrives named after the example — type a different name first if you like; a second copy of the same example is numbered, such as Birthday Club 2 — and opens in the editor, where every word, image and color is yours to change. The images it uses are copied into your images and media at the same moment, so the form never depends on ours. If they are still being copied, the screen says so and nothing is made; press Create form again a moment later.

The form reminds you while it still uses one of our images: This form still uses an example image — check that it fits your store before publishing. appears among the things worth knowing under the preview and goes away when you replace the image; it is only a reminder, and the form publishes either way.

It comes with the display rules it was made for: a delay before a welcome popup opens, the moment someone goes to leave for a "before you go" card, every page for a bar, blog pages for a form made for the end of a post. Every example starts out hidden from anybody who is already subscribed on the channel it asks for. They are suggestions, set on Where it appears, who sees it, and when it opens like any other rule, and you change them the same way.

An example that offers a discount code needs your discount chosen on its panel before it can be published, and one that asks for a phone number needs text messages enabled and your number approved — see Asking for a telephone number, in the chapter What a form collects.

Easy Opt-in waits for your number. It is built around the six-digit code we text to confirm a phone number, and there is no code until a carrier has approved your number. Until then you can look at it, and its row says Available after your phone number is approved. instead of offering Create form, with a link to Settings → Text messages, where the number is started and followed. See Easy Opt-in, in the chapter What a form collects.

The form's own page

Open a form from the index and you land on its own page. It answers one question: what is on your storefront right now, and what would change it.

On your storefront is the big half. It draws the version that is live, whole, at the size a visitor meets it, inside a light hint of where the form sits on a page — a bar against the top, a popup in the middle, a corner card in its corner — because with the page gone entirely a bar and a popup draw identically. On desktop / On mobile switches which screen it is arranged for. Under the drawing sit the short facts: which version, when you published it, where it shows, and how many signups your forms have taken.

When you click a version on the right, the drawing swaps to it and the line above says so — Showing Holiday 2025. This is not what visitors see. Show what is live puts it back. The page never draws one version while offering to publish another.

If your store has never shown a Carpe Messaging form, a line at the top says so and offers to enable it. Nothing in this product reaches a visitor until that is on, so it is the loudest thing on the page until it is done.

You have changes nobody has seen appears underneath, and only when it is true. It says when you last edited and which version publishing would replace, and it carries everything you can do about that: Publish changes, Preview them — which points the drawing above at your working copy — and Discard changes since last publish. If anything is stopping the publish, the reasons are listed right there, beside the button they refuse. On a form you have never published the same card says Not on your storefront yet and carries the one Publish.

The switch beside the form's name says whether it is Live or Paused, and pressing it changes that. Pausing a live form asks before it does it; making a paused form live again puts it straight back. A draft or an archived form shows its state without a switch, and so does the page for a team member who can only view. Clone and Archive live in the ⋮ beside Edit form.

Versions

Every publish keeps the version it replaced, exactly as it was. Nothing is ever overwritten, so there is always a way back. The list on the right holds the versions you have published — your working copy is not one of them, because it has never been anywhere.

Click any version to see it in the drawing on the left. Each row carries a ⋮ with everything you can do to that version.

Name your versions, and say why

A version starts out as a number. Give it a word instead — Holiday 2025, Everyday signup, The one that worked — and you will find it again in March. The name is yours: nobody visiting your store ever sees it, and naming a version changes nothing about what it shows.

Underneath the name there is room for a note — what you changed, or why you kept this one. Cut the second question — signups doubled. A name tells you which version this is; a note tells you what happened, which is the part nobody remembers three months later. It appears under the name in the list, and like the name it is yours alone: no visitor to your store ever sees it.

You can name and note any published version, and your working copy too — its name lives on its own card, under Name this version. Clearing the name brings the number back; clearing the note removes it.

Two things you can do with an old version

They are different acts, and the difference is whether anything reaches your storefront.

Make this live puts that version back on your storefront, exactly as it was. Visitors see precisely what they saw then, nothing is rewritten, and your working copy is left alone — so whatever you were in the middle of is still there when you go back to it. It works on any version you have published, not just the last one: edit your form for a holiday, publish it, and when the holiday is over put the everyday one back in one click.

Edit from this version copies that version into your working copy so you can carry on from it — and publishes nothing. Your storefront does not change until you press Publish. This is the one to reach for when the form is paused, or has never been live, or when you have made a mess of the working copy and want to start again from something that worked. It replaces what is in your working copy now, so the app asks first.

You can only use either one on a version that was published once. A working copy was never shown to anybody, so there is nothing to go back to.