Scanning for new items

Scan your whole Shopify store for inventory items the app is not tracking yet, and understand when a scan is the right tool.

What a store scan does

A store scan looks through your entire Shopify store for inventory items that are not currently tracked by any group. That includes products added after your initial setup, and anything the app missed.

Anything the scan finds is prepared and sorted into the correct group, the same way items are handled during first setup.

Info: Depending on your store size, a scan can take several minutes. You can keep using the app while it runs.

How to run a scan

Open the Groups page: Go to the app's Groups page.
Choose Scan store: The button sits in the controls above the groups table.
Confirm: The app will explain what it is about to do and warn you if your store is large enough that the scan will take a while.
Start the scan: Choose Start scan. Progress is shown while it runs.

When to run a scan

A scan is the right tool when you think the app has never seen an item at all.

That usually means one of these:

You imported or created a large batch of products and some are not showing up in any group.
Syncing was paused or disconnected for a while, so change notifications were missed. See Pausing inventory syncing.
Your plan lapsed or your trial ended, and the app was disconnected before you resubscribed.
A variant looks like it should be in a group, but it never appears there and never shows as waiting for setup.

Note: If the app recommends a store scan after reconnecting, you will see a Store scan recommended alert. That alert appears when the app detects it was fully disconnected and may have missed inventory events. See Alerts.

Scanning is not the same as manual syncing

These two actions solve different problems, and using the wrong one is a common source of confusion:

Manual sync processes work the app already knows about. It handles due groups and queued setup items. It does not go looking for anything new. See Manual syncing.
Store scan goes looking for items the app has never detected, and adds them to the group structure so they can be synced in future.

If a variant already appears under Waiting for setup, the app has detected it and a scan will not speed that up. Use a manual sync instead. See Creating / updating groups.

Tip: Ask yourself whether the app knows the item exists. If it does, use manual sync. If it does not, use a store scan.

Does scanning affect your plan usage?

No. Running a store scan does not use any group syncs.

Group syncs are only used when a group's stock is actually updated. A scan prepares and groups items, it does not push stock. See Plans, limits, and usage.

After the scan

Items found by the scan are sorted into groups based on their SKU and stocked location, exactly like any other group.

New groups may be created for SKUs that did not previously have one.
Existing groups may gain new members.
Variants that do not share a SKU with anything else at the same location will sit in single-member groups, which are excluded from syncing automatically.

For the rules behind how items are grouped, see What are SKU/location groups?.