Collection filters

Collection filters let shoppers narrow a collection by color: tap Red, see only the red products. The color filter shows up in the same place as Price, Size, and Availability, because it runs on Shopify’s built-in filters rather than a separate widget.

It works off the swatches you already set up in your product groups. Each swatch gets matched to a filter color, and that mapping is what powers the filter.

Note

This feature is available on the Advanced plan or higher.

How it works

Every swatch maps to a filter color - a base color like Red, Blue, or Multicolor. The app writes that mapping to a product metafield and exposes it to Shopify. You then add that metafield as a filter in Shopify’s Search & Discovery app, and shoppers filter using Shopify’s native filter UI.

Products are grouped by filter color, not by individual swatch names. So Crimson, Cherry, and Brick all sit under one Red filter instead of cluttering the sidebar with near-duplicates.

The app doesn’t add its own filter UI to your storefront. It supplies the data; Shopify draws the filters.

Set it up

Step 1: Enable filters

1. Open Color Swatches and go to Settings > Product groups.
2. Scroll down to the Collection filters card.
3. Turn on Enable metafields for filters.

This creates the metafield definitions Shopify needs. You can’t turn it on without an Advanced plan or higher.

Step 2: Choose which options to filter

Under Which option names to use in filters?, pick the option names you want to turn into filters. Color is the usual one, but any option you group by works - Style, Material, Finish. Each one becomes its own filter on the storefront.

Step 3: Let the app map your swatches

As soon as filters are on, the app matches every swatch to a filter color in the background. Each option name shows a Syncing badge while the pass runs, then Synced when it’s done.

• Solid-color swatches map by their hex value to the nearest filter color.
• Two-color and image swatches are mapped by AI. The AI only sees the swatch itself - its name, its colors, and, for image swatches without a recognizable name, the swatch image. No product, customer, or store data is sent.

Adding a new swatch or a new filter color later triggers another pass on its own, so the mapping stays current without you doing anything.

Step 4: Add the filter in Shopify

Your store’s filters all live in Shopify’s free Search & Discovery app, and that’s where you add the color one. Install it from the Shopify App Store if you don’t have it yet.

To add the filter, open Search & Discovery, go to Filters, and click Add filter.

Under Source, click Select source.

Search for Platmart and choose Platmart Swatches: Filter / Color. If you filter by more than one option, each has its own source, like Platmart Swatches: Filter / Style.

In Filter label, enter the name customers will see, like Color. Then click Manage values.

Turn on Use images when available so the filter shows your swatch colors and images instead of plain text, then click Done.

Save the filter. Open a collection page on your storefront, and the color filter now appears alongside your other filters.

Managing filter colors

Click Manage filter colors on the Collection filters card to open your palette - the list of colors customers filter by.

From here you can:

• Add a color - give it a name (like Red) and pick its shade. The name is what shoppers see as the filter option.
• Move swatches to a different color when the automatic match isn’t what you want.
• Review the AI’s low-confidence guesses.

When the AI isn’t confident about a swatch, it flags it. A swatches to review banner appears on the Filter colors page. Click Review color mapping, then keep the matches that look right and move the rest. This is the one place worth a quick look after setup, so your filters stay accurate.

Good to know

• A swatch doesn’t need a name to be filterable. Products are grouped by filter color, not by swatch name.
• A filter color with no swatches mapped to it won’t show up as a filter option.
• If a filter doesn’t appear on your storefront, check that it’s been added in Search & Discovery and that your theme shows filters on collection pages.

That’s it. Shoppers can now filter your collections by color.