How to add wishlists to WooCommerce

WooCommerce 10.9 introduced an experimental Wishlist feature under WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Features. It is opt-in, so it may not appear on older versions or on every store.

The core feature is limited: shoppers must be logged in, your store needs a block theme, and the single-product template must use the Add to Cart with Options block. Classic product templates will not display the core wishlist button.

On a staging site, open WooCommerce > Settings > Advanced > Features, enable Wishlists, and save the settings. Open the site editor and check the single-product template. Add or retain the Add to Cart with Options block.

Use at least one published simple product and one variable product for testing. The core feature can save a selected variation, not just the parent product, when the customer chooses its attributes first.

Create a normal customer account and sign in. Open a product page and check for Add to wishlist. Add a simple product, then select the size or colour of a variable product and add that variation.

Confirm the items appear under My Account > Wishlist, can be removed, and can be moved to the cart. The common Friday-afternoon failure is testing while logged out: the core button is hidden for guests, so that behaviour is expected rather than a front-end error.

The built-in feature is fine for a small, block-based store that only needs personal wishlists for registered customers. It avoids adding another extension and gives shoppers a wishlist area in My Account.

It is not a complete replacement for a dedicated wishlist system. It does not cover guest persistence, public or shared lists, multiple lists, classic product templates, or a broad set of wishlist controls. A custom-coded system is possible, but you would need to handle user storage, guest cookies, variation data, privacy, front-end actions and maintenance yourself.

If the core requirements do not fit, install WooCommerce Wishlists from its ZIP file by going to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin. Choose the file, select Install Now, and activate it.

After activation, open the extension’s wishlist settings under WooCommerce. Its default wishlist pages and required shortcodes are created during activation, but check the page assignments and add links to the relevant pages in your navigation.

Choose whether guests may create lists, whether customers can create multiple lists, and whether lists are public, shared or private. The documented WooCommerce Wishlists extension stores guest lists temporarily through browser cookies, while registered users can keep lists attached to their accounts.

Fast way: install and activate WooCommerce Wishlists, check its generated pages, enable guest access if required, then test a simple product, a selected variation, a guest browser and a logged-in account. This is the better route when you need shareable lists, customer retention features or a classic WooCommerce theme.