Theme blocks and app blocks

Theme blocks and app blocks are the building blocks you arrange inside sections to build your storefront pages. Theme blocks ship with your theme; app blocks come from the Shopify apps you install. You add and configure both in the Shopify theme editor.

What blocks are

Blocks are the pieces you place on a page — media, text, buttons, accordions, marquees, and the rest. You build a page by adding a section and arranging blocks inside it: the section controls the layout, and the blocks fill it. A block is only available inside a section that supports it.

Theme blocks

Theme blocks are built into the theme. In the Pops theme, the pieces you place on a page are theme blocks you compose together rather than fixed, self-contained sections with hard-coded layouts. In the Cama theme, blocks are nested inside sections. You add and arrange theme blocks in the Shopify theme editor.

App blocks

App blocks come from the Shopify apps you install. When an app supports app blocks, you add its block to a section that accepts it, and the app renders its widget inside that space. For example, Snap Bundle adds a theme app block for each bundle type, and a bundle type can only be displayed on your storefront once its block has been added to the theme.

App embeds

App embeds are separate from app blocks. An app embed loads app content globally across the storefront rather than inside a section, and you enable it in the theme editor. For example, Snap Bundle's Bundle builder page is loaded by the SnapBundle app embed, while its other widgets load through app blocks.

Checkout extensions

Some app features are not blocks at all. Shopify checkout extensions, such as Snap Bundle's Bundle at Checkout, live in the checkout editor rather than the theme editor and are not theme blocks.