My abandoned cart emails just stopped going out, what happened?
If automatic abandoned-checkout emails used to go out and now don't, it's usually a setting that got switched off, a marketing app that quietly took over the job, or checkouts that no longer qualify - not a broken feature.
What's going on
My store used to send abandoned-checkout recovery emails automatically, no setup needed, and now customers just aren't getting them. Nothing in my settings looks obviously different, but the emails have quietly stopped. Did Shopify change something, did an app I installed break it, or did I accidentally turn something off?
This is a recurring complaint in Shopify merchant communities: the automatic abandoned-cart email that worked for months or years suddenly goes silent, usually noticed only when a merchant checks recovered-revenue numbers or hears from a customer who says they never got a reminder.
Why it happens
Shopify has changed how abandoned-checkout email is configured over time, and stores that have been around a while can find that a setting they remember no longer exists in the same place, or needs to be re-enabled somewhere new. When that transition happens without the merchant noticing, the email simply stops firing until someone finds and turns on the current equivalent.
Separately, most third-party email and SMS marketing apps instruct or automatically configure Shopify to disable its native abandoned-checkout email so customers don't get duplicate messages once the app takes over that job. If that app is later uninstalled, paused, or reconfigured, nobody remembers to turn Shopify's native email back on, so recovery emails vanish entirely.
Shopify also only sends the recovery email when a checkout actually qualifies - a valid email was captured, there was no payment error, the order is shippable, and it wasn't completed before the send delay passed. A shift in the kind of checkouts customers are abandoning can reduce or eliminate qualifying sends without any setting having changed at all.
5 ways to fix it
Check whether the abandoned-checkout email is still turned on at all
Shopify has more than one place that can control this, and it's easy for a setting to get flipped during other changes. Look at Settings, then Checkout, for the option to email customers about abandoned checkouts, and separately check Marketing, then Automations, for any abandoned-checkout workflow that might exist there. If either one shows as disabled, paused, or missing entirely, that alone explains the silence - re-enable it and send yourself a test abandoned checkout to confirm mail actually goes out.
Look for a marketing app that quietly took over the job
A very common cause is installing or reconfiguring an email or SMS marketing app - Klaviyo, Omnisend, Privy, and similar tools often ask permission to handle abandoned-cart recovery themselves, and disable Shopify's native email so customers don't get duplicate messages. If you've added, removed, or changed one of these apps recently, check its own abandoned-cart or abandoned-checkout automation to see whether it - not Shopify - is supposed to be sending, and whether that automation is actually active.
Verify the checkouts in question actually qualify for a recovery email
Shopify only emails a customer about an abandoned checkout when certain conditions are met: a valid email address was captured, the order wasn't completed before the send delay passed, there was no payment error, and the cart contents can be shipped. If your traffic mix has shifted toward phone-only checkouts, local pickup, or free/no-shipping orders, a real drop in qualifying checkouts can look exactly like a broken feature even though nothing was misconfigured.
Check your notification and email deliverability settings
If your store's outbound email has any delivery problems - a flagged sending domain, bounced store email address, or similar issue - automated notifications including abandoned-checkout emails can fail silently even while the setting shows as on. Check Settings, then Notifications, for any warning about email delivery, and look at the notification history for a specific abandoned checkout to see whether it was actually sent, bounced, or never triggered.
If the setting is gone, rebuild the automation rather than hunting for a hidden toggle
Shopify has changed how abandoned-checkout recovery is configured over time, and older stores sometimes find the simple on/off toggle they remember has been replaced by a template-based automation under Marketing. If you can't find your old setting, don't assume something is broken - create a new abandoned-checkout automation from the available template, set your preferred delay and recipient rules, and turn it on as a fresh setup rather than a restore.
Bottom line
This is almost always a settings or configuration issue rather than a genuine bug, and it's fixable without installing anything new. If you've since added a dedicated email marketing app, just make sure only one system - Shopify or the app - is set up to own abandoned-checkout recovery, since having both active (or both inactive) is what usually gets noticed first.
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