Shopify Custom Collection Labels for Carousels

Ever looked at your collection carousels and thought, “Gee, that’s a lot of ‘Men’s’ staring back at me?” You’re not alone! It’s a common dilemma for store owners – you want clean, descriptive collection titles for SEO and internal organization, but sometimes, those full names can look a bit clunky or repetitive in a compact carousel display. Renaming them isn’t an option, as it could mess with your URLs and search engine rankings. So, what’s a savvy Shopify merchant to do?

This exact question popped up recently in the Shopify Community, thanks to MEZ_MUS. They had a carousel of sub-collections, all starting with “Men’s,” and wanted to display shorter labels like “T-Shirts” instead of “Men’s T-Shirts,” but only in that specific carousel. The good news? The community rallied with some excellent, battle-tested solutions that leverage Shopify’s powerful metafields and Liquid code. Let’s dive into how you can achieve this polished look for your own store!

The Power of Metafields: Your Best Friend for Custom Labels

The consensus from the community – and frankly, the cleanest, most flexible solution – revolves around using Shopify’s metafields. MEZ_MUS already had a custom.display_name metafield, which is exactly the right starting point. Think of a metafield as an extra, custom data field you can attach to almost anything in Shopify – products, collections, customers, you name it. For collections, it means you can have your official collection.title and a separate, carousel-specific custom.display_name.

Here’s how the community suggests wiring it up:

Step 1: Ensure Your Metafield is Set Up Correctly

If you haven’t already, you’ll need to create a collection metafield. MEZ_MUS had already done this:

Go to your Shopify admin -> Settings -> Custom data.
Select “Collections.”
Add a new definition (or edit an existing one if you have something similar).
Give it a Name (e.g., “Display Name”) and a Namespace and key (e.g., custom.display_name).
Crucially, set the type to “Single line text.” As Mustafa_Ali pointed out, rich text metafields need slightly different handling, so “Single line text” keeps things simple for a short label.
Save your metafield definition.

Step 2: Populate Your Metafield Values

Now, for each collection where you want a custom label in the carousel, go to that collection in your Shopify admin. You’ll see the “Display Name” metafield (or whatever you called it) at the bottom. Enter your desired shorter label there (e.g., “T-Shirts” for “Men’s T-Shirts”). Leave it blank for collections that should just use their normal title.

Step 3: Edit Your Theme Code (Carefully!)

This is where the magic happens. You’ll need to find the Liquid file responsible for rendering your collection carousel. This is often in a “section” file (e.g., sections/collection-list.liquid or similar). Look for a loop like for collection in collection_list or wherever {{ collection.title }} is being outputted for the carousel labels.

The community offered several variations, but the core idea is to check for your metafield first, and if it’s empty, fall back to the regular collection title. Here’s the most robust way, combining insights from Mustafa_Ali and Ecom_swift_LLC:

Find the relevant Liquid code: In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store -> Themes -> Actions -> Edit code. Search your theme files for where the carousel outputs collection.title.
Replace {{ collection.title }} with this snippet:

{%- assign display_title = collection.metafields.custom.display_name.value | default: collection.title -%}
{{ display_title }}

What’s happening here? The default: collection.title filter is your safeguard. If you haven’t set a value for custom.display_name on a particular collection, it will “default” to using the regular collection.title. This means you don’t have to go back and fill in every single collection immediately; you can do it gradually.

Going Further: Auto-Stripping & Advanced Liquid

What if you have dozens of collections starting with “Men’s” and don’t want to manually fill in a metafield for every single one? The community also discussed some clever Liquid-only solutions. While powerful, some initial suggestions had edge cases. For instance, using remove: "Men's " could remove “Men’s” from the middle of a string, and split | slice could accidentally remove the first word of any collection title, even if it didn’t start with “Men’s.”

Fortunately, MayraApps provided a much more robust Liquid snippet that handles these scenarios beautifully. It checks if the title actually starts with “Men’s” (handling both straight ' and curly ’ apostrophes) before stripping it. This is a great “set it and forget it” option for many collections, while still allowing the metafield to override for unique cases:

{%- liquid
  assign label = collection.metafields.custom.display_name.value | default: collection.title
  assign prefix = label | slice: 0, 6
  if prefix == "Men's " or prefix == "Men’s "
    assign label = label | slice: 6, 200
  endif
-%}
{{ label }}

This snippet is a fantastic example of combining the best of both worlds: it leverages your custom.display_name metafield first, and if that’s empty, it then intelligently strips “Men’s” from the beginning of the regular title. It’s a smart, automated way to keep your carousel clean.

Crucial Considerations for Theme Edits

Before you dive into your theme code, there are a couple of really important things to keep in mind, as highlighted by Mustafa_Ali and MayraApps:

Theme Updates: If you edit your theme’s core files directly, there’s a risk that a future theme update from Shopify could overwrite your changes. Shopify’s newer Online Store 2.0 themes are better at merging changes, but it’s not always guaranteed.
Best Practice: Duplicate Your Theme! Always, always, always make a duplicate of your live theme before making any code edits. Work on the unpublished duplicate. That way, if anything goes wrong, your live store remains untouched.
Document Your Changes: Keep a record of which files you’ve edited and what changes you’ve made. This will be invaluable if you need to re-apply changes after an update or troubleshoot later.
Clear Cache: Joshua827 mentioned that sometimes you might need to clear your theme cache for the new labels to show up. If you don’t see changes immediately, this is a good first step!

By using metafields and a little bit of Liquid magic, you can create a much cleaner, more user-friendly experience in your collection carousels without compromising your store’s SEO or internal data structure. It’s a perfect example of how small, thoughtful customizations can make a big difference for your customers. Remember, the Shopify community is full of brilliant minds ready to share their insights, so don’t hesitate to ask questions and learn from others’ experiences!

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