Shopify order notifications: fix the ones you have, then get a call for the orders that matter

Turn on the Shopify app's order push and the staff order email first. Shopify cannot call you; here is how to get a call for big or problem orders only.

By Sohel Rana, Co-Founder, OLL.E

Published October 31, 2026

Turn on two things and every Shopify order reaches you: push notifications from the Shopify mobile app, and the staff order email, which you set in the admin under Settings, Notifications, Staff notifications. Neither one rings like a phone call, and Shopify has no setting that does, so the second half of this post is about getting a call for the few orders that deserve one.

OLL.E, the app we make, does not connect to Shopify. No Shopify login, nothing in the Shopify App Store. It sees your orders where they already reach you: the order email in Gmail, which works on iPhone and Android with nothing extra, and the Shopify app's push notification, which works on Android directly and on iPhone only with the OLL.E PinG keyring, because iOS does not let an app read other apps' notifications in the background. First, though, Shopify's own notifications. Nothing later in this post works if those are off.

How do I get notified of a new Shopify order?

There are three switches, and it is easy to turn on one and assume it covers the others.

1. In the Shopify mobile app, open its notification settings and make sure order notifications are on. Push comes from the app, so do this on every phone that should hear about orders.
2. In the Shopify admin: Settings, Notifications, Staff notifications, Add recipient. The account owner gets new-order emails by default. Add anyone else who should, and add a Gmail address if your store email lives somewhere else.
3. On the phone itself, let Shopify notify you. On iPhone that is Settings, Notifications, Shopify. On Android, open Settings and search for 'Notifications', then find Shopify. Allow sound and the lock screen.

The email is the one people skip, and it is the one I would trust most. It does not depend on the Shopify app being awake on your phone, and everyone you add as a recipient gets their own copy. It is also what OLL.E reads later on, which is why a Gmail address belongs on that list.

Want a different order sound? Look in the Shopify app's notification settings first. On Android you can also change the sound the phone plays for Shopify: open Settings, search for 'Notifications' and pick Shopify.

Why am I not getting Shopify order notifications?

In our experience it is one of five things, and a Shopify bug is the least likely.

1. Order notifications are off in the Shopify app on this phone. A new phone, a reinstall or a second store is how it usually happens. Open the app's notification settings and check, rather than assume the old setting came across.
2. The phone blocks Shopify. On iPhone, check Settings, Notifications, Shopify. On Android, open Settings, search for 'Notifications' and find Shopify in the list.
3. Your phone put Shopify to sleep. Android's battery optimisation quietly stops apps it thinks you don't use; open Settings, search for 'battery optimisation' and take Shopify off the list. On iPhone, a Focus or Scheduled Summary can hold the banner back until later, so check Settings, Focus, and then Settings, Notifications, Scheduled Summary. We wrote the same fixes up for Gmail notifications not working, and they apply to Shopify unchanged.
4. The email lands somewhere you don't look. The store contact address changed, or Gmail filed the message under Updates or Promotions. Search all mail, spam included, for your store's name.
5. You aren't on the list. Only the account owner gets new-order emails by default; staff get nothing until someone adds them as a recipient.

Number three is the one that gets blamed on Shopify. If the orders are all there when you open the app but none of them made a sound, they reached Shopify fine. Look at the phone.

Can Shopify call me when an order comes in?

No. Staff notifications are email only, with no text message option, and push comes from the Shopify mobile app. A push at 6am looks like every other push on the lock screen.

The usual advice is to turn everything on. Don't. A shop owner should hear loudly about the big orders and the ones going wrong, and about nothing else. Every other order can pile up quietly and be read in one sitting. An order sound on every sale feels great for a while. Then you stop hearing it, and the email from a customer who got the wrong size sits under a stack of order banners until you go looking for it. Plenty of shop owners only find that kind of email when the customer writes a second, angrier one.

Neither the push nor the staff email reads what customers send after the order, and that is where problems tend to show up.

How do I get alerted only for big orders or problem orders?

Point a watch at the inbox those emails already land in. That is what we built OLL.E (say "Ollie") for. You type the watch as one normal sentence, it checks each new Gmail message against it, keeps none of the content, and gets loud only on a match. These are the three I would set up.

1. Big orders: an alarm

"Alarm me when a Shopify order over $200 comes in." Change $200 to whatever a big order means for your shop. The watch reads Gmail, specifically the staff order email, so it works fully on iPhone with no PinG. Add a summary as the action and the alarm comes with a short note on the order, enough to decide whether to get up. Before you rely on it, open one of your order emails and check the total is in it. The watch can only use what the email shows.

2. A customer with a problem: a phone call

This one reads what the customer actually wrote. Type "Call me if a customer emails about a wrong item, a refund or a chargeback", and a supplier newsletter that mentions its refund policy stays silent, while "I ordered the red one and got the blue one" rings even though it uses none of the words in your sentence. Make the alert a phone call and add a drafted reply as the action, so you start from a draft when you pick up. It watches the customer emails reaching your store address, in Gmail again, which means it needs that address to be a Gmail inbox or forward to one. Nothing extra on iPhone.

3. Ordinary orders: a separate, silent watch

This is the quiet half, and the one people forget to build. It is a watch of its own, with its own sentence: "Put every Shopify order email under $200 in my Shortlist." The Shortlist is silent. It never rings and never buzzes, so the night's ordinary orders collect there and you read them when you choose. The source is Gmail, like the other two.

You can add a summary to each entry, but every summary is an action, and the Free plan has 10 actions a month. On Free, leave it off.

What about Etsy or WooCommerce?

If your platform emails you for each order and that email lands in Gmail, the watches above work unchanged, because they read the email, not the platform. One watch can cover several shops: "Alarm me for any order over $200 from Shopify or Etsy." Check what each platform's order email contains before you lean on the amount. If your order emails go to Outlook or another inbox that isn't Gmail, the email route is closed today, though the app-push route still works on Android, and on iPhone with PinG.

What this can't do

It cannot see an order that never reaches your email or your phone. Turn the staff email off and the Gmail watch goes blind. It cannot touch the order either: no refund, no cancel, no tag, no hold on fulfilment, because there is no Shopify connection. Its actions live on the email side. It can draft or send a reply, forward the order to whoever packs it, label it, summarise it, or put a pickup on your calendar. The call rides on Shopify's email, too, so it can only be as quick as that email, never instant. If you need to know the second an order is placed, you want something built on Shopify itself, and OLL.E isn't that.

If only a few orders a week need you, this is enough.

OLL.E never logs in to your store; it works from the order and customer emails landing in your Gmail. You describe the orders and messages that matter, and it rings you for those with a call or an alarm, while a second watch files the rest in a Shortlist. Gmail watches work fully on iPhone; watching the Shopify app's push on iPhone needs the PinG keyring. There is a free plan for a quiet shop, and Pro is $19.99 a month with a 7-day trial. See the email watch example.