We’d love the ability to restrict app installs from stores that are still operating on a myshopify.com subdomain, with an exception for stores on the staff plan.
Our experience (and that of other developers we’ve spoken to) is that installs from these stores are overwhelmingly spam installs, copycats or bad actors — rather than legitimate merchants. Stores on the staff plan are a reasonable carve-out since those are internal Shopify use cases, but beyond that the signal is pretty clear.
What we’re asking for is something like:
A toggle in the Partner Dashboard to block installs from myshopify.com stores (excluding staff plan)
This would be a low-lift but high-value addition for app developers trying to protect their apps from abuse.
I presume you mean that you’re trying to restrict merchants that haven’t set up a live production URL on their store yet.
I understand that spam or bad actors might not bother to set up a live domain on a new Shopify store. It’s annoying to receive spam, I receive many messages from fake stores about paid review “services”.
However, also consider that if you restrict your app from being installed by these types of stores, you’ll also restrict potential leads from agencies that are evaluating your app before recommending it to a client. Or potentially a new Shopify store from an established merchant moving from another eCommerce platform.
I understand the desire to reduce spam, but I don’t think it outweighs the benefits of having your app more accessible.
But if you really want to go down this path, you can build it yourself. There’s an appUninstall mutation you can use to force uninstall your app:
Yep exactly. I see your point about legit installs. I wish Shopify would do more to filter out the bad actors.
I guess some kind of approval step would be ideal. This is easy to implement my side, but potentially you would be open to a bad review if they were actually able to install.