While we work with Shopify to try and recover or reverse the deleted collections, the following guide can be used to find and recreate Shopify collections, using historical website data.
Finding Original Collection Data
The Wayback Machine Web Archive (web.archive.org) keeps historical snapshots of websites and can contain your collection data from an earlier date. This could be used to recreate the collection, with the same title, url / handle, image etc.
Option 1
Go to https://web.archive.org
Search for:
yourstore.com/collections.json
Note: Replace "yourstore.com" with your actual store domain.
Click on the most recent snapshot from before March 29, 2026. If no snapshot exists for collections.json, try Option B below.
If collections.json exists, the text shown contains your collection titles, descriptions, handles, and image URLs in one place. Images will still be available in your Shopify store, and can be re-added to the new collection.
Copy the JSON data, and convert to CSV using a free online tool (https://data.page/json/csv) or similar.
Option B
Go to https://web.archive.org
Search for: yourstore.com/collections
Note: Replace "yourstore.com" with your actual store domain.
Select a snapshot from before March 29, 2026
When the page loads, all collections will be listed, often including the title, description, image and page url.
Copy the full web archive url. It will look similar to:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250915103638/https://yourstore.com/collectionsUse ChatGPT to extract the information from the snapshot page:
Visit the following web archive url, and create a CSV of each listed Collection. Extract and include each collection's:
- title
- description
- url
- image src url
- image alt text
- handle (last part of path, example: `summer-sale` in `/collections/summer-sale`)
- url to the archived version of the collection page
<PASTE URL FROM STEP 3 HERE>
Unfortunately the collections listing page does not always include all information. However, you can often look up individual collection pages in the Wayback Machine by visiting: https://web.archive.org/web/*/your-store.myshopify.com/collections/collection-handle. It will be included in the csv file above.
Recreating a Collection in Shopify
Option A - Create in Shopify Admin directly
Once you have your collection data, go to your Shopify admin and recreate them manually:
1. Go to Products > Collections > Create collection
2. Enter the title, description, and image from the archived data (images will still exist in your Shopify image library)
3. Set the collection type (Automated), and the Rules.
4. If you had SEO title or description set, scroll down to "Search engine listing" and click "Edit" to enter those
5. Repeat for each missing collection
Option B - Import using Matrixify
If you have many collections to restore, you could use the Matrixify app to import them in bulk via CSV. See their guide here for detailed import instructions.
We sincerely hope this helps recover your collections data.