In your Shopify admin, go to Products → Collections → Create collection, name it, then under Collection type choose Smart. Add one or more conditions, save, and Shopify populates the collection automatically — and keeps it updated as your catalogue changes.
Create the collection
- From the Shopify admin, go to Products → Collections.
- Click Create collection (top right).
- Enter a Title. This becomes the page's H1 and usually the URL handle, so use the phrase shoppers actually search for — "Men's Waterproof Jackets", not "MWJ-2026".
- Write a Description. Two or three sentences of real copy; empty collection pages rank badly.
- Under Collection type, select Smart.
- Choose Products must match: all conditions or any condition.
- Set your first condition, e.g. Product tag — is equal to —
waterproof. - Click Add another condition for as many rules as you need.
- Set the Sales channels and, under Search engine listing, edit the page title and meta description.
- Click Save.
Products matching the rules appear immediately. New products that match get added on their own, with no further work.
Which conditions are available
Shopify lets you build rules on: product title, product type, product vendor, product tag, product price, compare-at price, weight, inventory stock, variant's title, and product metafields (on newer plans). Operators vary by field — text fields offer is equal to / is not equal to / starts with / ends with / contains / does not contain, while numeric fields offer is greater than / is less than.
All conditions = AND. Any condition = OR. You cannot mix AND and OR in one collection. If you need "waterproof AND (jacket OR coat)", create a tag that captures the OR half and use it as a single condition.
Condition patterns that hold up
- Tag-driven collections. The most reliable approach. Tag products deliberately (
waterproof,gift-under-50,new-arrival) and build every smart collection on tags. It survives title and vendor changes. - Sale collection. Compare-at price is greater than 0. Products drop out automatically when the sale ends.
- Under-$50 gifts. Price is less than 50, plus tag is equal to
gift. - Back in stock. Inventory stock is greater than 0 combined with a product type. Handy as a hidden collection for merchandising.
Tags are the engine here, so keep them tidy — see How to Delete or Edit Tags in Shopify.
Converting an existing manual collection
Shopify won't flip an existing manual collection to automatic. You create a new smart collection, verify it, then retire the old one and redirect its URL. The full sequence, including the redirect step, is in How to Change a Shopify Collection from Manual to Automatic.
Gotchas worth knowing
- Manual sort order isn't available. Smart collections can't be hand-sorted product by product unless you switch to manual. Use Best selling, Price, or Created for ordering. More on this in How to Change Product Order in Shopify.
- Featured product images for the collection still need setting manually under Image.
- Large catalogues lag. On stores with tens of thousands of products, newly matching items can take a few minutes to appear.
- A collection with zero matches still publishes. Check the product count before you link to it from navigation.
Once it's live, run the page through the free Collection Page Score to see whether the title, description and internal links are pulling their weight, and read the Shopify Collection SEO Guide.
FAQ
What's the difference between an automated and a smart collection?
They're the same thing. Shopify's admin labels the type Smart when you create it, while the documentation and older themes call it an "automated collection". Both mean a collection populated by conditions rather than by hand-picking products.
How many conditions can one smart collection have?
Shopify allows up to 60 conditions per automated collection, which is far more than most stores need. Practically, more than four or five conditions makes a collection hard to reason about later. If you're stacking many rules, create a dedicated product tag instead and use one condition.
Can I manually add a single product to a smart collection?
No. A smart collection only contains products matching its conditions. To force a product in, edit that product so it satisfies a rule — usually by adding the tag the collection keys off. That's another reason tag-based conditions are easier to manage than price or title rules.
Do automated collections update automatically when I add a product?
Yes. Any product matching the conditions joins the collection with no action from you, and drops out when it stops matching. On very large catalogues there can be a short processing delay, but no manual refresh is ever required.