Shopify Magic Product Descriptions: Where It Went and How to Use It

October 22, 2026

If you are looking for Shopify Magic to write a product description, it is still in your Shopify admin, under a new name. As of October 2026, Shopify documents its built-in description writer as part of Sidekick, its AI assistant, and shopify.com/magic now leads to the Sidekick page. You open a product, click the Sidekick icon in the description toolbar, type a prompt, and the draft lands in the description box. It is included with your Shopify plan. The rest of this guide covers the steps, the prompt that gets a usable draft, the checks to run before you save, and the cases where a different tool does the job better.

What happened to Shopify Magic

Shopify Magic was the name Shopify gave to the AI features spread across the admin: the description writer, suggested replies in Inbox, email copy and more. Shopify’s help center now groups these under AI-powered tools, and the text-writing part sits under Sidekick. As of October 2026 its help page lists what Sidekick writes from inside the page you are editing:

When you click the icon, Sidekick writes text for the following: Blog posts, Online store pages, Product descriptions, Shopify Messaging emails, Content in the theme editor

The name “Shopify Magic” has not vanished completely. A few help pages still use it, for example for sorting storefront filter values. For product descriptions, though, the instructions you want are filed under Sidekick.

On cost, Shopify’s Sidekick page answers the question directly, as of October 2026:

Does using Sidekick cost money? No. Sidekick is included with your Shopify plan. Features and usage limits vary by plan.

So there is nothing extra to buy, but the limits depend on your plan.

How to generate a Shopify Magic product description, step by step

These are the steps from Shopify’s own help page on generating descriptions, as of October 2026:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Products.
2. Open the product you want a description for.
3. In the product description box, click the Sidekick icon in the toolbar.
4. Type a prompt describing the content you want, then submit it.
5. The generated text is placed straight into the description field. Edit it, then click Save.

Two details from that page are easy to miss:

• Desktop only. Shopify says text generation is not supported on iPhone or Android, so use the admin in a desktop browser.
• Saving publishes. For a product that is already live, the new description shows on the store as soon as you save. Read it before you click Save, not after.

The prompt can be in any language Shopify supports, and the draft comes back in the language you wrote the prompt in.

What to put in the prompt

Shopify’s help page sets a minimum: a product title and at least two features or keywords. Below that, drafts get generic fast. The page also lists the kinds of detail that improve results. Here they are as a checklist:

A prompt built from that table might read:

Write a product description for a cold-process olive oil soap bar, 120 g, unscented, for people with sensitive skin. Mention it is cut by hand, so each bar varies slightly. Plain, warm tone, under 100 words, no exclamation marks.

If the first draft misses, Shopify’s best-practice page suggests refining it in short follow-ups (“make it shorter”, “use a warmer tone”) rather than rewriting the whole prompt. For changes across several fields at once, it suggests asking for a before-and-after table before anything is changed.

Check the draft before you save

This is the step that protects you. Shopify’s own help page warns that generated text “can include things such as product benefits even when you didn’t list any explicitly, and facts based on other published content related to similar products.” You are responsible for what the description says, whatever wrote it.

Before saving, read the draft against the product in front of you:

• Every fact. Material, size, weight, capacity, what is in the box. Delete anything you did not supply.
• Every promise. “Lasts for years”, “dermatologist approved”, “waterproof”. Keep a claim only if you can stand behind it.
• The first sentence. It should say what the item is. Shoppers skim it, and search engines often show it.
• Care and returns. If these matter for the product, check they are there and correct.
• Length. Cut padding. A short description that answers the buyer beats a long one that repeats itself.

Our guide to what makes a Shopify description convert covers structure in more detail, and how to check an AI product description draft goes deeper on spotting invented details.

Where the built-in writer is the right tool

For many shops, Sidekick is all you need for descriptions. It is the obvious choice when:

• You sell only on Shopify and write a handful of products at a time.
• You are already in the product editor and want a first draft without switching tabs.
• You want help elsewhere in the admin too, such as page copy or emails, from the same assistant.
• Your plan’s limits cover your volume.

If that is you, stay with it. Use the prompt table above, check the draft, and save.

When another tool fits better

Some jobs sit awkwardly with a writer that works one product page at a time. Here is how the options compare on the jobs sellers usually bring:

The cases where it is worth looking past the built-in writer:

• You also sell on Etsy. Etsy wants a different title shape and 13 tags, which Shopify’s writer is not built for. ListingBrief AI drafts both listings from one set of notes.
• You are adding or refreshing a catalogue. Bulk generation and a Shopify-formatted CSV save opening each product page in turn. Our Shopify product CSV template explains the columns.
• You want to try a draft without signing in to your store. The free Shopify description generator writes a description, SEO title and meta description from your notes, with no account needed.
• You keep getting invented details. ListingBrief writes only from the notes you give it and does not add materials or included items you did not mention. You still read the result before publishing.

A quick routine for either tool

Whichever writer you use, the routine that produces descriptions you can trust is the same:

1. Write two or three lines of notes: what it is, what it is made of, the size, who it is for.
2. Generate a draft from those notes.
3. Delete anything the notes do not support.
4. Make sure the first sentence says what the item is.
5. Add care, sizing or delivery details the buyer would otherwise ask about.
6. Save, then view the live product page once on a phone.

The writer saves you the blank page. The checking is still yours. Do both and the description is faster to write and safer to publish.

If you want to compare more ways to write descriptions, see our product description template with fill-in versions for common product types.