# Metafield

> A metafield is an extra field you add to a Shopify record to store something the built-in fields have no box for.

- Source: https://storestandards.com/glossary/metafield/
- Updated: 2026-08-14
- Author: Tom Beckwith, Engineer, Store Standards

---

Products, variants, orders, locations and customers can all carry them.

## What stockrooms use them for

- The [bin location](https://storestandards.com/glossary/bin-location/) a variant lives in
- A supplier's own product code, next to your
  [SKU](https://storestandards.com/glossary/sku/)
- A case quantity, so a scan of an outer counts as twelve
- The date a batch expires

Shopify has no field for any of these, and every one of them is something a
stockroom needs on the screen.

## Define them properly

Create a definition first, with a name and a type, rather than writing loose
values. A defined metafield is validated, appears in the admin as a proper
field, and can be edited by a person instead of only by an app.

## Where it goes wrong

An app writes its data into its own private metafields and does not document
them. Uninstall the app and the values are still there, unreadable, or they
are deleted with it. Ask where an app keeps its data before you depend on it,
and check you can export it through the
[Admin API](https://storestandards.com/glossary/admin-api/).

The other one is using a metafield as a stock count. Quantities belong on the
[inventory item](https://storestandards.com/glossary/inventory-item/), where Shopify updates them when
an order is placed. A number in a metafield is a number nothing keeps true.

## Related terms

- [Variant](https://storestandards.com/glossary/variant/): A variant is one buyable version of a Shopify product, such as the blue medium. Stock, price and barcode all live on the variant.
- [Admin API](https://storestandards.com/glossary/admin-api/): The Admin API is how apps read and change things in your Shopify store, including the stock levels a scanner updates.
- [Bin location](https://storestandards.com/glossary/bin-location/): A bin location is the address of a place in your stockroom, so anyone can be told where to find a product without being shown.