Bouncer Age Gate help

Bouncer Age Gate · Checked against the app on 9 October 2026

Bouncer adds a full-screen age check to your store. Visitors confirm their age before they can see your products, and Bouncer remembers them so they are not asked again on every page. Everything runs inside your theme: there is no app dashboard, no account and nothing to sign up for.

Setup (about two minutes)

1. Install Bouncer from the Shopify App Store. You land on a short welcome page.
2. Click Open theme editor. (Or go to Online Store > Themes, click Customize or Edit theme, whichever your admin shows, then click the App embeds icon in the left sidebar.)
3. Switch on Bouncer Age Gate.
4. Pick a verification mode and set your minimum age (the default is 18).
5. Click Save. Open your store in a private or incognito window to see the gate as a new visitor would.

Bouncer is an app embed, so it does not appear under Add section or Add block. If you cannot find it, look under the App embeds icon, not in the sections list.

Settings

All settings live in the theme editor under App embeds > Bouncer Age Gate.

Verification settings

Content

Appearance

Choosing a mode

• Yes / No buttons: the quickest for shoppers. One tap on Enter and they are in. Leave sends them to your redirect address.
• Date of birth: visitors pick month, day and year. Bouncer works out their age. If they are under your minimum age they see "You must be [age] or older to enter." and are sent to your redirect address two seconds later. Use this when your market or payment provider expects a date of birth rather than a single click.
• Checkbox confirmation: visitors tick "I confirm I am [age] years of age or older" before the Enter button becomes active. A good middle ground: a deliberate action, without typing a date.

Common setups

Alcohol or CBD store, gate everything: Mode Date of birth, Minimum age 21 (US) or 18 (UK, EU, South Africa), Remember for 30 days, Show on All pages.

General store with one adult collection: Show on Collection pages gates every collection page, not just one. If only a few products need a gate, see the FAQ on product-level gating.

Brand look: switch on Show logo, set Background color to your brand dark, Background opacity 90%, and Button color to your brand accent.

FAQ

Is Bouncer free?

Yes. Bouncer has no paid plan, no limit on visitors or verifications, and no watermark.

Does Bouncer prove a visitor's age?

No. Bouncer is a self-declaration gate: visitors confirm their age, they do not upload ID. That is what most stores selling age-restricted goods online use on the storefront, but your legal duty depends on what you sell and where. Some products and countries also need an ID check at delivery or checkout. Check the rules for your products and region, and treat Bouncer as one layer, not the whole answer.

Does the gate show at checkout?

No. Checkout is run by Shopify, outside your theme, so theme apps cannot add a gate there. Visitors normally reach checkout through your storefront, where Bouncer has already asked.

Can I gate only certain products or collections?

Not individually today. "Show on" picks a page type (for example all product pages). If you need a gate on a handful of products, tell us at support@digitalcartel.online: product-level gating is on our list, and every request moves it up.

Will the gate hurt my SEO?

Your page content is still in the HTML that search engines read, and the gate is added on top in the browser. Google's guidance is that this kind of interstitial is acceptable when it is legally required, as age verification is.

Does Bouncer slow my store down?

Bouncer is one small stylesheet and one small script, served from Shopify's own servers with your theme. It makes no calls to outside servers. Verified visitors never see the gate: the script checks for them first and removes it.

What does Bouncer store about visitors?

One cookie, bouncer_age_verified, set on the visitor's own browser when they pass. It holds the value 1 and nothing else. Bouncer does not collect dates of birth, names or emails: the date of birth check happens in the visitor's browser and is never sent anywhere. Full details: https://digitalcartel.online/privacy/age-verification.html

Can I translate the gate?

The heading, message and button text are yours to write in any language. A few pieces are fixed English today: the checkbox line ("I confirm I am ... years of age or older"), and in Date of birth mode the Month, Day and Year labels and the two error messages. Use Yes / No mode if you need every word in another language.

Does it work on mobile?

Yes. The gate is full screen on phones and tablets, and the date of birth selects use the phone's own pickers.

Which themes does it work with?

App embeds work on every current theme, including Dawn and the free and paid themes in the Shopify Theme Store. They also work on most older (vintage) themes, because an embed does not need sections. If your theme editor has no App embeds icon, email us and we will check your theme.

Troubleshooting

I switched it on but I do not see the gate.

1. Make sure you clicked Save in the theme editor.
2. You may already be verified. Bouncer remembers you for the period you chose. Open the store in a private or incognito window, or clear cookies for your store's domain.
3. Check Show on. If it is set to Product pages, the homepage will not show the gate.
4. Check you edited the live theme. Embeds are switched on per theme, so a duplicate or draft theme needs its own embed switched on.

My store flashes for a moment before the gate appears.

All app embeds load slightly after the page starts drawing, so some themes show a brief flash. To remove it:

1. Go to Online Store > Themes > ... > Edit code and open layout/theme.liquid.
2. Paste this line just above the closing </head> tag and save:

<style id="bouncer-preload">body{opacity:0!important;overflow:hidden!important}</style><script>setTimeout(function(){var s=document.getElementById('bouncer-preload');if(s)s.remove()},250)</script>

Bouncer removes it as soon as the visitor is verified, and it removes itself after a quarter of a second in any case, so a slow connection never leaves the page blank. Delete the line if you ever uninstall Bouncer.

Visitors are asked again too often.

Raise Remember verification for. "This session only" asks again whenever the browser is closed. Visitors who clear cookies, use private browsing or switch device will always be asked again, because the cookie lives on their browser.

The decline button sends people to Google. I want my own page.

Enter any address in Redirect on decline, for example a page explaining your age policy.

The gate covers my cookie banner or chat widget.

Bouncer sits above your theme on purpose, so nothing can be used before verifying. Widgets become usable as soon as the visitor passes the gate. A few widgets place themselves higher still and can show on top of the gate; if one does, email us and we will help.

I want to test the gate again after passing it.

Clear cookies for your store's domain, or use a new private window each time.

Uninstalling

1. Go to Settings > Apps and sales channels, find Bouncer Age Gate and click Uninstall.
2. The embed and its settings are removed from your theme automatically. Bouncer never edits your theme files.
3. If you added the optional flash fix line to theme.liquid, delete it.

Visitors who were verified keep a small, harmless cookie on their own browser until it expires.

Still stuck?

Email support@digitalcartel.online with your store address and what you see (a screenshot helps). A real person (the developer) reads every message.