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How To Remove Uncategorized From WordPress Categories

Published Categorised as SEO

Some WordPress themes provide you the option to “hide empty categories” for posts. This means if there’s no posts in a category, it won’t appear in navigation menu. Divi, our recommended theme for eCommerce stores does this!

However, many WordPress themes don’t provide quite this level of control to automatically remove empty post categories from WordPress Menus and Sidebar navigation.

AND…

Even if the uncategorized WordPress category is hidden from navigation menus, this doesn’t mean that the category is removed completely from WordPress.

If you’re trying to hide uncategorized category in WordPress – suggest you think about removing the uncategorized category altogether following the steps below!

How to delete uncategorized category in WordPress

So here’s how to get rid of uncategorized in WordPress – completely

But first…

Is it ok to delete uncategorized category in WordPress

Yes – absolutely, you can delete the uncategorized category from WordPress without causing any problems. It’s just another category which can be removed, deleted and replaced.

Now that’s clear – let’s get into how to delete uncategorized category from WordPress.

Removing Uncategorized Category WordPress

So if you want to remove the uncategorized category from WordPress completely so it’s not just hidden, but the uncategorized category is deleted from WordPress – follow these steps.

Steps to remove uncategorized from WordPress

Step 1. Change the default post category

Go to the WordPress Post Category list under “Posts > Categories”, hover over the category in the list you’d like to make the “default” post category.

By default the uncategorized category in WordPress is set to be the default post category – and you CANNOT delete a category whilst it’s set as the default post category.

So…

Whilst hovering over one of the other post categories, you will see an option to “make default” will appear – select this option – making your selected category the default post category.

The default product category is now changed to the category you selected, allowing you to…

Step 2. Delete the Uncategorized Post Category in WordPress

On the Post Category list within WordPress Hover over the Uncategorized Post Category and click “Delete”

The delete option is ONLY available IF you’ve made another Post Category the Default Post Category.

Remember it’s not possible to delete the default Post Category in WordPress – so you need to follow these steps – changing the default post category FIRST.

Other Resources

If you’re trying to remove uncategorized from WooCommerce product categories – you should follow this guide I created on how to get rid of uncategorized in product category in WooCommerce.

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By Ashley Pearce

I'm the founder of Future State Media, a "small-on-purpose" creator-focused SEO agency skilled in helping creators systematically generate traffic, build audiences and maximise their monetisation whilst staying true to their brand.