How to remove PageFly or GemPages from Shopify without breaking your pages

Before you click uninstall

What happens if you uninstall PageFly or GemPages?

This is the part most forum answers get wrong, because the builders have changed their behavior. Here is what each one's own documentation says today:

Checked against each vendor's help center, September 2026. Vendors change this. Re-read the linked page on the day you uninstall.

If you read "your pages will stay live", that's out of date

PageFly's help center used to say published pages would keep showing after uninstall, just without editing, and that line still turns up in search snippets and old forum threads. The current page says the opposite. Plan around the current one.

Can you export PageFly or GemPages pages?

Both builders have an export button, and neither gives you HTML. PageFly exports .pagefly files (without images), and GemPages exports .gempages files (v7 pages, paid plans only). Both only import into another store running the same app. There is no "export to Shopify sections". (PageFly, GemPages)

Dropping to the free plan isn't a way out either, unless you have only one page: both free plans allow a single published page.

The safe order

How to remove a page builder from Shopify in seven steps

1. List every page the builder controls

In the builder's dashboard, write down every published item. For each one, record:

• its URL (/pages/about, or the product and collection templates it's assigned to)
• the SEO title and meta description
• full-page screenshots on desktop and on a phone
• any forms on it, and where their submissions go

Product and collection templates are the ones people miss. If a builder template is applied to 40 products, all 40 fall back to the default layout the moment it goes.

2. Duplicate your theme

Online Store → Themes → the live theme's … menu → Duplicate. Do all the rebuilding on the copy. Customers see nothing until you publish, and you can share a preview link to check it on your own phone. (Shopify help)

3. Rebuild each page with your theme's own sections

On an Online Store 2.0 theme (Dawn and most themes from 2021 onward), each page can have its own JSON template holding up to 25 sections, which you edit by dragging them around in the theme editor. Create one template per page (Customize → Pages → Create template), then rebuild the layout from native sections:

Two traps from doing this on real stores:

• Older themes don't have these sections. Vintage themes like Debut have no collapsible-content section, so an FAQ needs a custom section with its own schema. Check your theme's section list before you promise anyone a date.
• PageFly accordions aren't in the page source. They're assembled by JavaScript in the browser, so tools that read a page's source HTML don't see the questions at all. Copy FAQs by opening every panel on the live page, not from "view source". When I scanned PageFly stores, more than a third had accordions that source-reading tools had counted as plain text.

4. Keep the same URLs

Rebuild each page under the same page handle, so /pages/about stays /pages/about. Nothing moves for Google or for links in old emails. Copy the SEO title and meta description across. If a handle does have to change, add a redirect from the old path (search "URL redirects" in your Shopify admin).

5. Switch over in one sitting

One Shopify detail catches people out here: a page's template choice is stored on the page, not on the theme. Changing it on a page changes it on the live store too, even while you're working on the duplicate. So do the switch in one sitting:

• assign each page its new template
• publish the duplicate theme
• then check each page on a phone, send a test through every form, and search your store's HTML for the builder's name

If something looks wrong, your old theme is still in the theme list. Republish it.

6. Now uninstall the builder

Only once every page is running on native sections. Use the app's own uninstall flow (PageFly: Preferences → Account; GemPages: run "Uninstall Safely" first, then remove the app), and don't close the tab until it has finished.

7. Remove leftover PageFly and GemPages code from your theme

Shopify removes app blocks automatically, but page builders are allowed to write straight into your theme files, and an app loses access to your store the instant it's uninstalled, so it can't tidy up after itself. (Shopify help) In Online Store → Themes → Edit code, search for the builder's name and clear out what you find:

Remove the reference before the file. If you delete pagefly-head.liquid but leave the line in theme.liquid that loads it, every page on your store shows "Liquid error: Could not find asset snippets/pagefly-head.liquid". Delete the render/include line first, save, check the store, then delete the file. Do this on a duplicate as well if you're unsure: "gem" matches more than GemPages, so read each file before you delete it.

Is it worth doing?

When to keep the builder

Keep paying if you build new landing pages every week for campaigns. That is what page builders are for, and hand-building each one would cost you more. The rebuild makes sense when your builder pages are finished: an About page, an FAQ, a couple of product layouts that haven't changed in a year, and a monthly bill to keep them showing.

If your only builder pages are Privacy, Refund, Terms or Contact, you don't need anyone. Shopify generates the policy pages for free (Settings → Policies), and every theme ships a contact template.