Free Shopify Geolocation App: Replace What Shopify Removed

The old Geolocation app detected where a visitor was browsing from and recommended the matching Shopify Market: right country, right currency, right shipping estimate. Shopify announced the change through its own changelog, and even delayed the original deprecation date before the app was fully sunset on March 24, 2025.

Shopify's own guidance was direct. For most single-domain stores, turning on automatic domain redirection and automatic browser language redirection under Online Store → Preferences covers what the old app did, no app needed. (On older Markets 1.0 setups, this is still under Settings → Markets → Preferences instead.)

But Shopify was just as direct about the exception: if you sell into the EU on an EU top-level domain, like a .fr or .de domain, local regulations require a consent-based redirect, asking the visitor before switching their experience, not doing it automatically. Shopify's own changelog says plainly that for this case, merchants should use a third-party app from the App Store. That's the real gap the built-in settings don't close.

Search for this problem today and most results fall into one of three buckets: Shopify's own changelog notice (accurate, but not a guide), generic "how to pick a geolocation app" checklists that never actually walk you through installing one, or roundups built around a single paid, enterprise-leaning app that's overkill if you're not running a dozen international markets.

None of it answers the question a smaller store owner actually has: what's the free, no-code option that just works.

IPGeolocation.io built a free Shopify app specifically to cover the gap Shopify left. It brings back everything the old native app did and adds a few things it never offered.

What it does:

• Detects visitor location and shows a popup recommending the matching Shopify Market, or a separate connected store if you run more than one. Once a visitor confirms, or on their next visit, they're routed there automatically

• Connects up to 3 separate Shopify stores for free, useful if you run region-specific domains instead of a single multi-market store

• Shows a customizable popup with dynamic variables like {city} and {currency_symbol}

• Supports unlimited popup translations at no extra cost

• Gives granular redirect rules: show the popup to everyone, specific countries only, or everyone except your home market, and exclude pages like checkout or your privacy policy

• Detects bots using IPGeolocation's own IP data and skips the redirect for them, so every localized version of your store stays crawlable and indexable

The app runs on ipgeolocation.io's own IP geolocation API, the same data used by companies including Atlassian, Verizon, and SpaceX, with 99% country-level accuracy and IP data updated daily. It loads asynchronously, so it doesn't slow down your storefront while it works in the background.

The Shopify app covers store personalization out of the box, but the IP Location API behind it is available on its own too, for anyone who wants to go beyond what the app does.

A single call to the API returns a visitor's city, country, coordinates, ISP, currency, and time zone for any IPv4 or IPv6 address. That's useful outside the storefront popup itself: autofilling country, state, and ZIP code on a checkout form so customers don't have to type them, or flagging a mismatch between a visitor's detected location and the billing address they enter, a common early signal for card fraud.

The free plan covers 1,000 lookups a day for life, no credit card required, and includes core location, currency, and time zone data. SDKs are available for most major languages if a developer on the team wants to wire it into a custom checkout flow or backend instead of the packaged app.

This isn't necessary for most stores using the app for popups and redirects. It's for teams building something more custom on top of the same location data.

Most native and low-cost geolocation setups stop at showing a flag icon with no name attached. This app's popup can say "Hi! You're visiting from Berlin. Shop in EUR?", naming the visitor's city right in the message. The store or market they actually land on is still matched at the country level, since that's how Shopify Markets work, but the popup copy itself isn't limited to that. That's the difference between a popup that feels personal and one that just states a country name. A currency symbol next to a price changes conversion behavior in a way a flag icon alone doesn't.

1. Install the app. Get it free from IPGeolocation app on the Shopify App Store. No credit card required.

2. Turn on app embeds. In your theme editor, enable the Geo Redirect Popup and Market Selector under App Embeds.

3. Set your rules. From the app dashboard, choose which countries trigger a redirect or popup, write your translations, and exclude any pages you don't want it running on.

That's it. The app syncs automatically with your existing Shopify Markets setup, and if you add or change a market later, one click on the dashboard's Sync button pulls in the update.

• A DTC brand selling in two or three countries who wants visitors routed to the right currency and shipping without running separate ad campaigns per region

• A multi-market Shopify store that wants a personalized "you're visiting from France, want to shop in French?" popup instead of a generic country banner

• An agency managing several client stores, where one Connection ID links up to three regional stores under one dashboard

• Anyone who used the old Geolocation app before March 2025 and just wants the same core features back, plus a few Shopify never offered

Being upfront here matters more than the pitch. The free plan includes 1,000 geolocation lookups a day, and there's no paid tier to raise that cap. That's plenty for most small and mid-sized stores, but a high-traffic store well past that daily visitor count will hit the ceiling, and lookups beyond it won't process until the next day's reset.

The free multi-store connection caps out at 3 stores. Agencies managing more than that per group will need to plan around the limit or look at a paid tier.

It also doesn't replace your own compliance homework. A location-based popup still counts as tracking visitor data in some jurisdictions, so if you have EU traffic, check your consent banner setup separately. The app handles geolocation and redirect logic, not legal consent requirements.

And if your theme is heavily customized, enabling app embeds is usually simple, but a handful of older or heavily modified themes may need a developer's five minutes to get it placed correctly.