Import search queries

Add queries to your corpus directly, rather than waiting for shoppers to run them. Good for seeding a new property with historical search logs from your old setup, or for testing coverage with a sample list.

Why import

Live capture only sees searches from the moment signals capture is on (or you start calling the search API). Until then, your corpus is empty, which means Intelligence has nothing to read and Top queries on the Search queries page is blank.

Importing fills that in. The most common case is a fresh install where you have a year of Shopify-search analytics or third-party search data sitting around: drop it in and your dashboard goes from empty to representative on day one.

How the import flow works

  1. From the Search queries page, click Import queries.
  2. Either paste queries into the text area or upload a CSV / TSV / TXT file (up to 20MB).
  3. You'll see a preview of how many queries were detected and which timestamps (if any) were found. Confirm to start the import.
  4. Progress runs in the foreground. When it's done, the new queries are in your corpus and the Search queries page reflects them.

File format

The format is intentionally permissive: one query per line, with a few rules to keep ambiguous data out.

  • One query per line. Empty lines are skipped.
  • Commas and tabs inside the query text are preserved. A query like iphone 12, 64GB stays intact.
  • Optional timestamp at the end of the line. Append after the last comma or tab. Use ISO 8601 (2026-01-15T14:32:05Z) or Unix seconds / milliseconds. With a timestamp, the row lands on the day it actually occurred; without one, it lands at import time.
  • Timestamps without a timezone are treated as UTC.
  • Ambiguous date formats are rejected (e.g. 01/15/2026: is that Jan 15 or 1 May depending on locale?). Export ISO from your analytics tool.

Examples

red shoes women's
Plain query, no timestamp.
iphone 12, 64GB
Commas inside the query are kept.
red shoes, size 10,2026-01-15T14:32:05Z
Timestamp after the last comma.
waterproof jacket,1744732325
Unix timestamp in seconds.

Limits

  • One upload up to 20MB.
  • Larger imports: split the file into chunks and import them in sequence.

After the import

The new queries are marked source Imported in the corpus, so you can filter Live vs Imported on the Search queries page. Both kinds feed Intelligence and the demand-vs-supply math equally.

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