How Wishlist Plus Handles Cookies and Cookie Consent

This article explains, in full, what information Wishlist Plus stores in a shopper's web browser, how it responds to a shopper's cookie choices, and the two mechanisms Wishlist Plus uses to stay usable and compliant for shoppers who haven't consented to cookies yet. It is written for merchants using Wishlist Plus, and for agencies configuring it on behalf of a client. Last verified against the current product on 27 July 2026.

What this article covers, and what it doesn't: this article is specific to Wishlist Plus running on Shopify. It supplements, and does not replace, the Swym Privacy Policy, which is the governing legal document across all Swym products and platforms. If you need a formal compliance opinion for your own legal team, use this article as a factual reference and have your own counsel review it against your specific obligations — this isn't legal advice.

Wishlist Plus uses small pieces of information called cookies, stored in the shopper's web browser, to do things like remember an anonymous visitor's wishlist contents, recognize whether they're logged in, and remember contact details they've provided for alerts such as back-in-stock notifications. All of these are named starting with "swym-".

Each cookie below is marked as Necessary, Functional, or Marketing — the categories commonly used in cookie banners and consent management tools. If you use a consent management platform, you can use this table directly. If you need this categorization confirmed for a legal filing or audit, have your own privacy counsel review it against your specific obligations.
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swym-rvn and swym-wn apply only on stores with Recently Viewed or the Added-to-Wishlist nudge turned on, both off by default; every other row in this table is active for every merchant by default.

Wishlist Plus also stores a small number of items directly in the shopper's browser local storage, rather than as cookies. These support caching, internal bookkeeping, and a few optional features, and do not require cookie consent to operate, since local storage itself is not governed by the Shopify Customer Privacy API the way cookies are. swym-rvd and swym-rvua apply only on stores with Recently Viewed turned on, off by default; every other row here is active for every merchant by default.
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None of the other Wishlist Plus features — Add to Wishlist alerts, Back in Stock alerts, Low Stock alerts, Price Drop alerts, Removed from Wishlist notices, Save-for-Later reminders, and Wishlist Reminder emails — set any cookies of their own. These work by sending emails or triggering automated workflows behind the scenes, with no footprint in the shopper's browser.

Wishlist Plus also includes an optional analytics tool called a web pixel. This tool only reads the cookies listed above, along with Shopify's own shopping cart cookie, to measure activity. It never sets any cookies of its own, and it only runs if the shopper has given consent for analytics, marketing, or preference tracking through Shopify's own consent system.

By default, Wishlist Plus relies entirely on Shopify's own consent system, the Customer Privacy Application Programming Interface, to decide when it's allowed to operate. If Shopify determines no consent banner is required for a shopper's region, Wishlist Plus loads and works normally right away. If a banner is required, Wishlist Plus waits until Shopify confirms the shopper has given consent.

Necessary cookies, the ones needed just to identify your store and keep the always-visible Advanced wishlist button working, load regardless of the shopper's consent decision. Consent only governs the Functional and Marketing cookies above, and Privacy-First Wishlist's own local-only save.

What the shopper actually sees while consent is undecided depends on which type of wishlist button your theme uses — this is not uniform, and it's worth understanding precisely:

Both mechanisms below can appear on the Advanced Product Detail Page button, the Advanced Collections button, and the header icon. They use a similar-looking prompt, which makes them easy to conflate — but they answer a shopper's decline very differently.

This mechanism checks Shopify's real consent status at the exact moment a shopper clicks. If consent has already been given, the item is added instantly. If not, a prompt appears asking the shopper to consent. If the shopper declines this prompt, no wishlist action is taken and no data is stored anywhere — not as a cookie, and not on the shopper's own device. The button stays visible for them to try again later; declining doesn't lock anything.

This flow is designed to work alongside your store's main cookie banner. If a shopper has already accepted cookies through your banner, they will never see this prompt at all.

Full detail: Contextual GDPR Consent for Wishlist.

This is a separate, optional feature. Where enabled, it lets the wishlist keep working for a shopper who declines cookies, by saving their wishlist items to their own device instead of using cookies. No cookies are set, and no personal information reaches Swym unless and until the shopper later chooses to log in.

The two mechanisms don't hand off to each other. Declining the Contextual GDPR Consent prompt does not activate Privacy-First Wishlist's device-only saving — they're independent systems that happen to share a visual design. If your store has both active on the same button, contact Swym support to confirm exactly what a shopper will see and what happens if they decline, since the exact behavior depends on your specific configuration.

Full detail and configuration steps: Privacy-First Wishlist for Stores with Cookie Consent Banners and Privacy-First Wishlist — Configuration Guide.

The consent prompt and device-only drawer are available in 18 languages, including ten added in July 2026 whose translations are machine-drafted and pending native-speaker review. See Privacy-First Wishlist for Stores with Cookie Consent Banners for the full list and current status.

This is the most important scope fact in this article: Privacy-First Wishlist's device-only saving only works on two specific storefront components — the Advanced Product Detail Page wishlist button, and the Advanced Collections wishlist button.

If your theme uses the classic (non-Advanced) Add to Wishlist button or classic Collections button instead, turning on Privacy-First Wishlist has no effect on those blocks. A shopper who declines cookies there sees the same non-functional heart icon described in Section 2 (Default behavior — and it isn't the same everywhere on your storefront) — whether or not the feature is enabled.

The header wishlist icon is a partial case. It can show the Contextual GDPR Consent prompt on click, and it can open a preview panel showing items already saved locally by one of the two Advanced buttons elsewhere on your storefront — but it cannot itself save an item locally. Its own item-count badge always reflects server-side data requiring real consent, so it will not include anything saved under Privacy-First Wishlist.

Before enabling this setting and telling shoppers or clients it's active, confirm which wishlist button blocks your theme actually uses. Contact Swym support or your theme developer if you're unsure.

If you've built a custom wishlist experience rather than using either Swym-provided block, contact Swym support before assuming either mechanism described above applies automatically — custom implementations may need additional configuration to behave the same way.

What a conversation with Swym support actually covers, in practice: two things get scoped together. First, whether your account has Swym's newer Advanced components enabled at all. Older accounts don't have these turned on by default, and enabling them is something Swym's support team does on their side, not a setting you can toggle yourself. Second, since a custom wishlist implementation means your own theme code, not a Swym-provided block, getting either consent mechanism working means integrating with your existing custom flow rather than a simple settings change. So, should you choose that, Swym's support team can help scope that together with you on a case-by-case basis, based on what you're actually running. Whichever path you take, your shoppers' existing saved wishlists are unaffected, since that data is stored independently of whichever button or UI is currently showing it.

Configuration lives in Settings → Compliance and Accessibility, with two controls: Works without cookies (turns the feature on or off) and Ask for Permission (controls whether the consent prompt appears on the first click or the third). Full step-by-step instructions, including a check for which button blocks your theme uses before enabling anything, are in the Configuration Guide.

If your store uses a separate consent management platform — OneTrust, Cookiebot, Consentmo, or similar — both mechanisms above are designed to work alongside it, not in conflict with it. Your consent management platform continues to control whether Wishlist Plus's standard, cookie-based version loads at all. No special configuration is required beyond correctly categorizing the cookies listed in Section 1 (What Wishlist Plus stores in the shopper's browser, and why) within that tool.

Does this apply automatically based on my store's region? No. Your store's region is only used to suggest a sensible default the first time you open the settings page. Your own configuration choice always governs, regardless of region.

Does declining cookies affect anything else on my store, like analytics or advertising pixels? No. These mechanisms only affect wishlist functionality. Everything else on your store continues to be governed by your main cookie consent banner.

Can a shopper access their locally-saved wishlist on a different device? Not unless they log in. Items saved locally are tied to the specific browser and device they were saved on.

Does the shopper need to create a new account to sync? No — they can use an existing account, or create one through your store's normal sign-up process.

I've confirmed my theme uses the Advanced blocks, and Privacy-First Wishlist still isn't working. What should I do? Contact Swym support directly. There are store-specific configuration factors that aren't always visible from the settings panel, and our team can check your specific setup.

This article reflects Wishlist Plus product behavior as verified on 27 July 2026. If something described here doesn't match what you're seeing on your store, contact Swym support ([email protected]) so we can look into it.