Troubleshooting redirect imports

Learn what to do if Redirect Pro won't accept your import file, or if the import file is accepted and your redirects fail to be imported.

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Fixing errors before importing

Redirect Pro may not accept your import file if it's in the wrong format. Here's some key things to check.

File format not accepted

Redirect Pro only accepts imports of .csv (comma-separated values) files.

Other spreadsheet formats (.xls, .xlsx, .tsv, etc.) are not accepted. This includes variations of CSV files using delimiters other than commas (e.g. semicolons, tabs, pipes, etc.).

Follow the steps below to make sure your spreadsheet is saved as a comma-delimited .csv file:

Excel: File > Export > Change File Type > CSV (Comma delimited) > Save As
Google Sheets: File > Download > comma-separated values (.csv)

Invalid CSV Header: Missing headers Redirect from, Redirect to

This error message is displayed if your spreadsheet is missing column headers. You can use our example spreadsheet as a template to make sure you have the right column headers:

Redirect from in cell A1
Redirect to in cell B1

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Fixing errors after importing

If your import starts processing successfully, we'll send an email summary when it's complete to the email address you signed up to Shopify with. This may contain a 'Import complete with errors' heading and a summary of what and where the errors are, helping you to amend your import file.

Path is invalid

The 'path' is your Redirect from URL. Note your path should start with a forward slash.

Target is invalid

The 'target' is your Redirect to URL. Note your target should start with a forward slash if redirecting to a different page on your primary domain, or should be a full URL if redirecting to a subdomain, secondary domain or external website.

Path / Target can't be blank

The Redirect from and / or the Redirect to URL were left blank. Both columns for a given row in your spreadsheet must contain a URL to be imported.

Target can't redirect to another redirect

The 'target' is your Redirect to URL. This error message means Shopify does not allow 'chaining' of redirects. Broken link 'A' cannot be redirected to broken link 'B' if 'B' is already being redirected to an active page, 'C'.

In this context, try redirecting broken link 'A' to active page 'C'.

Path cannot be a Shopify system page

Shopify has certain pages (like checkout or account pages) that are system-controlled, and you can't create redirects for these URLs.

You can't redirect URLs that begin with the following prefixes: /apps, /application, /cart, /carts, /orders, or /services.

You can't redirect URLs that use fixed Shopify paths: /products, /collections, /collections/all.

Target can't be the same as path

This means a broken link can't be redirected to itself. Try changing the Redirect to URL.

Redirects limit reached

If you try to import redirects and have reached the maximum limit of 100,000 redirects, Shopify won’t allow you to add more. However, Shopify may not display a specific error message about this. Instead, when attempting to upload more redirects through a bulk import, the system will simply not process additional redirects beyond the limit.

Try deleting some old or unused redirects.

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