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How to Remove Vitals Leftover Code from Your Shopify Theme

Vitals bundles many features into one app, and many of them may run through an app embed rather than theme files. In the stores we scan, its theme leftovers are smaller than those of most apps, but they are easy to miss.

What we see in themes is a few sections named vitals-<id> and code that reads the vitals.tsck metafield. Vitals also keeps a set of settings metafields on the shop.

Find Vitals leftovers with Store Health Clean it up manually

What Vitals leaves behind

Across roughly 170 Shopify stores scanned with Store Health, about 2% still had theme code reading Vitals data that no longer existed.

Theme files

  • sections/vitals-<id>.liquid: Sections added by Vitals features. The <id> part differs per store.

Metafields the theme still reads

These keys are read by theme code, but no data exists for them once the app is gone.

  • vitals.tsck in theme sections

Metafields the app stores

Data Vitals may keep in your store after uninstall. It is harmless once no theme code reads it.

  • shop: vitals.appSettings, vitals.shopThemeName
  • shop: vitals.storefrontBuild, vitals.cacheKeys
  • shop: vitals.documentInjectors, vitals.usesFunctions
  • shop: vitals.shopBlocked, vitals.tsck

How to remove Vitals code manually

Check first: Turn off the Vitals app embed in the theme editor first, then search the code for vitals.

  1. Duplicate your live theme. In Online Store > Themes, choose Duplicate on the live theme and do all of the work below on the copy.
  2. Turn off the app embed, if there is one. In the theme editor, open Theme settings > App embeds and switch off anything from Vitals. Remove any Vitals app blocks from your templates too.
  3. Search the code. Open Edit code and search for vitals, tsck. Write down every file that matches.
  4. Remove references before files. Delete the {% render %} and {% include %} lines that load Vitals snippets, and any code that reads the metafields listed above. Start with layout/theme.liquid, then templates, sections, and snippets.
  5. Delete the files. Once nothing renders them, delete the Vitals snippets, sections, and layouts. If you are unsure about a file, leave it for now. An unused file costs nothing.
  6. Test the duplicate. Preview the home page, a product page, the cart, and any page where Vitals showed a widget, on desktop and mobile. Check the browser console for errors.
  7. Publish and recheck. Publish the cleaned theme during a quiet hour and keep the old one as a backup until you are sure everything works.

Faster: let Store Health find it

Store Health scans your theme, scripts, and metafields in one read-only pass. It shows script tags and renders of missing snippets with their file and line number, and lists metafields your theme reads that hold no data. Nothing is changed in your store.

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FAQ

Why are there so few Vitals files in my theme?

Many Vitals features may load through an app embed instead of theme files. Turn the embed off in the theme editor, then search the code for the few sections and reads that remain.

What are the vitals shop metafields?

Settings and cache data the app stored on your shop, such as vitals.appSettings and vitals.cacheKeys. They do nothing on the storefront once no code reads them.

Do I need to remove the vitals sections?

Yes, if they are still referenced in a template. A section for a feature that no longer exists adds weight to the page for nothing.

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