By Pratik Poddar, developer of Botfound · Updated 10 November 2026
Category metafields are the attributes that come with a Shopify product category, such as colour, material, size or neckline. Set the category first, then fill them in the bulk editor's Category metafields columns, by CSV, or with a rule that writes one value to every matching product. Filled attributes let agents and storefront filters match a product to specific requests like "cotton shirt in blue".
Category metafields map to a product category in Shopify's Standard Product Taxonomy. The taxonomy calls them product attributes. A shirt's category, for example, brings clothing size, neckline and sleeve length type. Their values are entries you pick from, which keeps them consistent across products.
No category, no category metafields. If many products are uncategorised, do that first (how to set categories in bulk).
Work one category at a time. Mixed selections show many columns that only apply to some rows.
Often the attribute is already in your data: "Linen" in the title, a "cotton" tag, a vendor that only makes leather goods. A Botfound rule can set one category metafield on every product that matches (for example IF title contains "linen" THEN set material to Linen), only where it's empty, with a preview of every change and undo afterwards.
Start with the ones shoppers say out loud: colour, material, size, target gender and age group. They turn a vague match into an exact one.
No. You define custom product metafields yourself in Settings > Custom data. Category metafields are defined by Shopify for each category.
Shopify can connect an option such as Colour to a category metafield, so the option values become attribute entries. That keeps both in sync.
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