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Remove from On Hold

Pre-order orders are often kept on a fulfillment hold so they don't ship before your stock arrives. When you are ready to ship, you release the hold. This is done in Shopify, on the order, and it is the step that lets a held pre-order become fulfillable.


What "on hold" means


On the order in Shopify, the unfulfilled items show an On hold status. A hold is a deliberate block that stops the items from being fulfilled, put there by you, or by an app or automation, so a pre-order does not go out early. While an order or fulfillment is on hold, you cannot fulfill it or change its status. You must release the hold first.


How an order gets put on hold (for reference)


If you need to place one on hold yourself:


  1. In your Shopify admin, go to Orders and open the order.
  2. In the unfulfilled items section, click the three-dot menu, then Hold fulfillment.
  3. Choose a reason and apply it.


Release the hold


For a single order:


  1. In your Shopify admin, go to Orders and open the order you want to release.
  2. In the On hold section, click Release hold.
  3. If the fulfillment has more than one hold, select the holds you want to release, then click Release.


When the hold is released, the order's fulfillment status returns to its previous state, usually Unfulfilled. It is now fulfillable.


You can also do this from the Shopify mobile app: open the order, and in the on-hold section tap Release (selecting specific holds first if there are several).


Releasing holds at scale


If you have many pre-orders to release at once, use Shopify Flow's "Release fulfillment order holds" action to release them automatically, for example triggered on your ship date. This avoids opening every order by hand when a drop lands.


Important


  • Releasing the hold does not fulfill the order. It only makes it fulfillable, you still fulfill it as the next step.
  • Only release when you are actually ready to ship. Releasing holds before stock is in hand means those orders can now be fulfilled and shipped prematurely.
  • You cannot mark an order or fulfillment as fulfilled while any hold is still on it, release all holds first.



  • Why pre-orders are held and how the shipping date works, go deeper here: Shipping Dates.

Updated on: 07/01/2026

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