How to Print a Pick List in Shopify (Free + App Methods)
If you fulfill orders in-house, you already know the daily ritual: a batch of unfulfilled orders comes in, and you need something to walk the shelves with. The question is what to print. Shopify gives you a few free ways to get a Shopify pick list onto paper, and there are apps that go further. This guide walks through each method, where it works, where it falls short, and when a merged quantity-per-SKU sheet is the upgrade worth making.
We build Picksort, a Shopify app that merges your open orders into one clean pick sheet, so we spend a lot of time thinking about this exact problem. But let's start with what you can do for free, right now, inside Shopify.
Method 1: Filter unfulfilled orders and print packing slips
The fastest native option uses tools already in your admin.
- Go to Orders in your Shopify admin.
- Use the status filter to show Unfulfilled orders only. This trims the list down to what actually needs picking today.
- Select the orders you want by checking the box next to each, or check the header box to select the whole page.
- Click the Print packing slips action (sometimes under a "More actions" menu).
- Shopify generates a print-ready document with one packing slip per order. Send it to your printer.
This is genuinely useful and costs nothing. You get a paper trail for every order and something to drop in the box when you pack.
The catch with packing slips
A packing slip is organized for the customer, not for the picker. Each slip lists one order: the buyer's name, address, and the items they bought. If you print 40 unfulfilled orders, you get 40 separate slips. To pick against them, you walk the shelves order by order, and if the same SKU appears in twelve different orders, you visit that shelf twelve times. Packing slips are per-order by design, which is exactly what makes them slow for batch picking.
Method 2: The free Shopify Order Printer app
Shopify publishes a free first-party app called Order Printer. It's a step up from the built-in button because it supports custom templates and bulk printing.
- Install Order Printer from the Shopify App Store (free).
- Create or edit a template. You can build a basic pick-list-style layout with your own fields using its templating language.
- From the Orders page, select the orders you want and choose to print with Order Printer.
- It prints roughly 50 orders per print job at a time, so large batches get split into runs.
Order Printer is a solid free tool if you're comfortable editing a template and your volume is modest. You can tweak the layout to show SKUs, quantities, and line items in a format closer to what a picker wants.
Where Order Printer still falls short
The output is still one document per order unless you invest real time building custom Liquid logic to aggregate. Out of the box, it doesn't merge quantities across orders. If you sell the same candle in nine of today's orders, a standard Order Printer template still shows that candle nine separate times, on nine separate slips. You're back to walking the same shelf repeatedly.
For a deeper look at bulk output, see our guide on how to print all Shopify orders at once.
Method 3: A merged quantity-per-SKU pick sheet
Here's the shift that saves time. Instead of printing per-order documents, you print one sheet that merges every open order by SKU. That's what Picksort does.
Picksort reads your open, unfulfilled orders and adds up the quantities for each SKU across all of them. The result is a single pick sheet: one line per SKU, the total quantity to pull, and a checkoff box. You walk the shelves once, pull the totals, and you're done. Packing happens after, when items are back at the bench.
A few things that make it practical for real fulfillment days:
- Group your way. Sort the sheet by vendor, bin location, or SKU, and quantities re-tally instantly. Bin location comes from an optional product metafield; vendor comes from the product's vendor field. Grouping by bin turns your pick into a single walking route.
- Zero setup. No imports, no field mapping, no template building. Install it and open it, and your live orders are already merged.
- Read-only by design. Picksort only reads orders and products. It can't edit, fulfill, delete, or create anything, so there's nothing to break in your store.
- Print or pick from your phone. The sheet works in a single column on mobile for picking on the move, then prints cleanly with big quantities and checkoff boxes for packing.
If you want more on how grouping works in practice, we cover it in group Shopify orders by SKU, vendor, or bin. And if you're comparing tools, our roundup of the best Shopify pick list apps lays out the options honestly.
Which method should you use?
| Method | Cost | Best for | Main limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Print packing slips (native) | Free | A packing document per order | Per-order; slow to pick a batch |
| Order Printer app | Free | Custom per-order templates, ~50/print | Doesn't merge SKUs out of the box |
| Merged pick sheet (Picksort) | $9/mo, 30-day trial | Batch picking one trip per SKU | No barcode scanning or labels |
Be honest with yourself about volume. If you ship a handful of orders a day and rarely repeat SKUs, native packing slips are fine and free. But once you're picking the same items across many orders every day, the per-order model quietly costs you time on every trip to the shelf. That's the point where a merged sheet earns its keep.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I print a pick list in Shopify for free?
Yes. You can filter your Orders page to Unfulfilled and use Print packing slips, or install the free Order Printer app for custom templates and bulk printing (~50 orders per job). Both are free. The tradeoff is that they produce per-order documents rather than one merged quantity-per-SKU sheet, so batch picking is slower.
What's the difference between a packing slip and a pick list?
A packing slip is organized for the customer: one document per order, listing that buyer's items and address. A pick list is organized for the picker: ideally one line per SKU with a total quantity to pull across all orders, so you visit each shelf once. Shopify's native tools produce packing slips; Picksort produces a merged pick list.
Does Picksort change or fulfill my orders?
No. Picksort is read-only by design. It reads your open orders and products to build the pick sheet and cannot edit, fulfill, delete, or create anything in your store. You still fulfill in Shopify as usual.
How much does Picksort cost?
Picksort is one plan at $9/month with a 30-day free trial and cancel anytime. There's no free tier, but you can try the full app during the trial before deciding.
Ready to stop printing forty slips to pick one batch? Install Picksort and start a free 30-day trial to see your open orders merged into a single quantity-per-SKU sheet. Zero setup, read-only, and it works on your phone while you pick. You can also walk through it first on the tutorial.