How to bulk remove categories In WooCommerce with 3 clicks?

What if you need to delete just 3 outdated categories from 200+ in your store? If you’re running a large online store, you know how messy product categories can get. Outdated tags, duplicate entries, and unused classifications clutter your catalog, hurting both customer experience and SEO. But WooCommerce bulk remove products from category manually is simply not practical.

The good news is that there’s a smarter way! In this guide, we’ll show you 3 methods to bulk remove categories in WooCommerce with just a few clicks:

• WooCommerce delete all product categories.
• WooCommerce bulk remove products from category without plugin.
• Bulk edit category with WooCommerce products bulk edit plugin.

No more wasting time on individual edits – let’s clean your store efficiently!

What is the Category of products in WordPress?

A Category is the general and hierarchical grouping of site products. Remember to avoid placing similar titles in categories. If you don’t use categories, WordPress will place all products in the default “uncategorized” category, so it can be concluded that using categories is necessary to order the products and improve the customer experience of your online store.

WooCommerce remove uncategorized product category 

Once you add some products to WooCommerce, they must belong to a category. So, if you don’t assign any category to the products, WooCommerce will automatically create an “Uncategorized” category to set it as the default category and avoid further problems.

Sometimes, you need to remove uncategorized from WooCommerce because you have already add new categories to your store and it is not necessary anymore.

If you want to learn how to remove uncategorized category in WooCommerce follow the below steps:

• Navigate to WordPress > Products > Categories.
• In the Product Categories page, create a new category (if you have not created before).
• Hover over the category you want to set as default – BloomerArmada in this example.
• Click on “Make default”.

• Hover over Uncategorized and press Delete.

That’s it. You have successfully remove uncategorized from WooCommerce.

WooCommerce delete all product categories with 3 clicks

There is a simple and quick way if you want to let WooCommerce delete all product categories at once. To make this happen, you can simply follow 3 steps:

1. Increase the number of items per page

• Open Screen Options on top of the Categories page.
• Increase the Number of items per page to see all categories in the list of one page – You can set it up to 999.
• Press the Apply button.

2. Mark all product categories 

• Click the checkbox next to ID, so all categories will be selected.
• Press the Bulk Actions dropdown.

3. bulk delete all product categories in WordPress

• Choose Delete from the list of Bulk Actions.
• Press the Apply button.

Your task is done and you let WooCommerce delete all product categories with 3 clicks.

How to bulk edit and remove categories in Woocommerce without a plugin?

WooCommerce product category is a basic way to group products with similar features. If needed, you can also use sub-categories to make the category more precise. In the WooCommerce plugin, you can easily put any product in different categories. For example, if you have a clothing store, you will need the categories like “T-shirts”, “Hoodies” and “Pants”.

In order to bulk edit and remove category in Woocommerce without installing the plugin, you can go through the following steps:

1. access to WooCommerce products

After installing WooCommerce, the WooCommerce option will be added to the menu on the right side of your dashboard. The product option is also placed under it. From there you can access Categories. The category page will be available to you in Products>Categories. Similar to post categories in WordPress, you can also “add, remove or edit” product categories from this page

2. product category settings

Each product must be placed in a specific category. So, if you do not consider any category for a product yourself, it will automatically be placed in “Uncategorized” category. Note that this category cannot be deleted, however, you can rename it.

To add more categories, go to categories, write the name of the category you want and click on the “add a new category”.

For woocommerce bulk remove category without installing the plugin, you can use the list of categories displayed in a table on the categories page of Woocommerce. To remove one or more categories, you can:

• Check the checkbox next to each category.
• Press the Bulk actions combo box.
• Choose Delete.

But if you have a large number of categories or you want to delete a specific category assigned to some products, it is not possible.

In order to have more flexibility in woocommerce bulk edit and remove category, it is better to use WooCommerce product bulk edit plugin.

What are the advantages of using WooCommerce product bulk edit plugin?

The WooCommerce product bulk edit plugin will save a lot of time and speed up your work for making changes to products in your online store. This plugin helps you to bulk edit and update all the features related to your products, from categories to variations, and you can use it to manage your online store, easily and effortlessly.

This plugin is considered one of the most popular plugins for bulk editing of WooCommerce products and more than one thousand people have actively installed it. With the help of this plugin, you can easily edit the following:

• Products in stock
• Product price
• Order Status
• Product category
• Add or remove product features
• And…

How to bulk edit category with WooCommerce product bulk edit plugin?

One of the very useful features of this plugin is that you can change the product categories in groups. WooCommerce bulk edit category is easily available in this plugin through 2 methods:

1. Bulk Edit Form

• Click on “Bulk Edit” on the main page to open “Bulk Edit Form”.
• Go to “Categories / Tags / Taxonomies” tab in the form.

You can see two main boxes in front of Category Option:

The condition box includes three conditions as below:

• Append: The category or categories you are selected will be added to the existing categories.
• Replace: All current categories will be removed and replaced by the category or categories you are selected.
• Delete: The categories you have selected will be removed.

Select box enabling you to see all of the categories you have assigned to your products and you can select one or more from the dropdown list.

Note: If you add any categories to the product page of WooCommerce, they will be added automatically to this box and you can select among them.

2. Bind Edit

The Bind Edit option is located on the first page of the plugin. By marking its checkbox, you can make bulk changes directly in the product table.

For WooCommerce bulk edit category, go through the following steps:

1. Filter your desired categories through the Filter Form.
2. Add the category column to the table through the Column profile.
3. Enable the Bind Edit option.
4. Check all the products on the table.
5. Click on the category of one of the products.
6. In the form that opens, change the product category or add a new category with the “add new” option.
7. Click on “Apply changes”.

The plugin automatically changes the category for all products.

Can I remove multiple categories from selected products only?

Over time, product categories can become cluttered or outdated, leading to poor navigation and SEO performance. Removing irrelevant categories from select products helps:

• Improve store organization (cleaner browsing for customers).
• Boost SEO (by eliminating duplicate or misclassified listings).
• Enforce accurate tagging (for better filters & search results).

You can remove multiple categories from specific products using the advanced filter form in the WooCommerce bulk products editing plugin. Here’s how:

Step 1: Use the Filter Form to Filter Products

Click on the Filter icon in the toolbar to open the Filter Form.

Now you can set conditions to find your desired products (e.g., by title, category, tag, price range, etc.). The WooCommerce product fields are divided into different tabs to help you easily find what you need.

Let’s suppose that you want to bulk remove products with wine in their titles from multiple categories. 

To do this, find Product Title in the General tab, choose like from the list of Operators, and write Wine in the textbox.

Click “Get Products” to load only the filtered items.

Step 2: Select desired products 

Select the products by marking checkboxes in the table or “Select All” if needed.

Step 3: WooCommerce bulk remove products from multiple categories 

Use the Bulk Edit form to remove multiple categories of selected products by following the instructions below:

1. Go to Bulk Edit Form > Categories/Tags/Taxonomies.
2. Choose Delete from the action list.
3. Add as many categories as you need to remove in the selection box.

For example, you can delete Uncategorized category from the selected products like below:

This method is perfect for cleaning up product categories without affecting unrelated items.

Compare WooCommerce bulk remove products from category: 3 Methods 

Below is a comparison of three methods to bulk remove products from categories, highlighting their speed, precision, and impact on your store.

Feature	Method 1: Default Bulk Delete WordPress	Method 2: Manual Editing in WooCommerce	Method 3: WooCommerce product Bulk Edit Plugin
Speed	Fast (3 clicks)	Slow	Very Fast
Precision	Deletes ALL categories	Selective deletion	Pixel-perfect control
Works With	Entire store only	Individual categories	Any product group
SEO Impact	High risk (breaks URLs)	Medium risk	Safe (preserves URLs)
Best For	Complete resets	Minor tweaks	Professional stores
Product Targeting	❌ No	❌ Limited	✅ Yes (advanced filters)
Undo Option	❌ No	❌ No	✅ Yes
Special Features	None	None	Append/Replace/Delete modes

How to bulk remove categories by WooCommerce product bulk edit plugin?

WooCommerce product bulk edit plugin is a great tool helping you to effortlessly clean up your WooCommerce categories in seconds.

It is your ultimate solution for fast, precise category management. This powerful tool lets WooCommerce bulk remove products from category by following 3 Simple Steps:

• Filter products to select your target items.
• Select products in the table.
• Use the Bulk Edit form to bulk remove products from category.

By using the WooCommerce Bulk Edit Plugin, you can:

• Cut category cleanup time by 90%.
• Keep your store organized with zero stress.
• Focus on growing your business, not tedious edits!

How does category management affect SEO in WooCommerce?

Whether you’re cleaning up duplicates or optimizing category hierarchy, every change impacts how search engines and customers navigate your store.

Here’s how WooCommerce bulk remove products from category improves visibility:

1. Improving Site Structure

A well-organized category hierarchy helps search engines understand your store’s layout, making it easier to crawl and index products. Clear parent/child category relationships create logical content that improves topical relevance. For example, grouping “Running Shoes” under “Men shoes” helps Google recognize your content structure, potentially ranking category pages higher.

2. Reducing Duplicate Content

When products appear in multiple categories without canonical tags, search engines may see this as duplicate content, diluting your SEO efforts. For instance, if a “Wireless Headphones” product appears in both “Electronics” and “Audio” categories without proper handling, it could trigger SEO penalties. Proper category management by WooCommerce bulk remove products from category ensures each product has a primary category with clean URL structures.

3. Enhancing User Experience

Intuitive categories reduce bounce rates and increase session duration—key SEO ranking factors. For example, a customer searching for “Organic Skincare” should find a dedicated category rather than scattered products in “Beauty” or “Health.” Well-labeled categories with filtered navigation (e.g., by price, brand) keep users engaged, signaling to Google that your site provides value for visitors.

Conclusion

Removing and editing WooCommerce product categories is a very important part of managing your online store. These settings will help you to have a more organized and better store, which will provide a better user experience and customer satisfaction. If you need an efficient way to delete and edit WooCommerce categories and better manage your products, we recommend installing the WooCommerce product bulk edit plugin.

FAQs about bulk remove categories in WooCommerce

How to rename product categories in bulk (instead of deleting)?

With the WooCommerce product bulk edit plugin, you can efficiently rename product categories in bulk through a simple export-edit-import workflow:

• Export your product categories to an Excel/CSV file.
• Edit category names, slugs, or hierarchies directly in Excel.
• Import the updated file back to your WooCommerce store.

This method lets you preserve existing product-category relationships and avoid manual editing of hundreds of products

Read More: 3 easy ways to WooCommerce export products with images and other fields?

How to find and delete unused product categories in WooCommerce?

To find and delete unused product categories in WooCommerce, first use the Filter Form to filter unused categories, then use the Bulk Edit tool to select and permanently remove them. This cleanup helps organize your store and remove clutter.