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How to Bulk Move Posts to Categories and Tags in WordPress

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Do you want to bulk move posts to categories and tags in WordPress?

Many WordPress beginners often get confused about categories and tags and end up creating a lot of them, which can be confusing. However, you can easily sort this out by bulk moving posts to categories and tags.

In this article, we will show you how to easily bulk move posts to categories and tags in WordPress.

Bulk moving posts to categories and tags

Why Bulk Move Posts to Categories and Tags in WordPress?

Categories and tags are the two built-in taxonomies that help sort the content on your WordPress website.

However, many new users often create unnecessary tags and categories on their WordPress blogs due to not understanding how to use the taxonomies properly.

You can reorganize the content on your website by bulk moving similar posts to their designated categories and tags, improving user experience.

For example, if you have multiple posts in the ‘Vacation Spots’ category and also have another category called ‘Travel’, then you can bulk move all the posts in the ‘Vacation Spots’ category to the ‘Travel’ one to have all the articles about traveling in one place.

Plus, bulk moving posts to the correct categories can also improve your website SEO by making it easier for search engines to index your website.

Having said that, let’s see how to easily bulk move posts to categories and tags. You can use the quick links below to jump to different parts of our tutorial:

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How to Bulk Move Posts to Categories in WordPress

First, you need to install and activate the Bulk Move plugin. For detailed instructions, please see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, head over to the Tools » Bulk Move page from the WordPress admin sidebar.

To move your posts to a different category, select the category that the posts belong to from the dropdown menu on the left.

For example, if you have a blog post in the ‘Vacation Spots’ category and you want to switch it to the ‘Travel’ category, then first you must select the ‘Vacation Spots’ option from the left dropdown menu.

Choose the category you want to bulk move posts from

Once you’ve done that, choose the category that you want the post to switch to from the dropdown menu on the right.

Keep in mind that once you move a post to a different category, you cannot revert it. Finally, click the ‘Bulk Move’ button.

Choose the category you want to bulk move the posts to

Now, all the posts in that category will move to a different category.

To see the changes, you can visit your WordPress site, where the post’s category will have changed.

Preview of a post moved to a different category

How to Bulk Move Posts to Tags in WordPress

You can also bulk move posts to a different tag by installing and activating the Bulk Move plugin. For details, see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, visit the Tools » Bulk Move page from the WordPress dashboard and scroll down to the ‘Bulk Move By Tag’ section.

From here, select the tag that you want to bulk move posts from in the dropdown menu on the left.

Choose the tag that you want to bulk move posts from

After that, choose the tag that you want the posts to switch to from the dropdown menu on the right.

Next, click the ‘Bulk Move’ button to make the changes.

Choose the tag that you want to bulk move posts to

The posts will now switch to the tag that you chose.

You can now visit your WordPress site to see the changes.

Preview of a post moved to a different tag

Bonus: Merge and Bulk Edit Categories and Tags in WordPress

As your WordPress blog grows, there may be a lot of categories and tags that you do not use anymore or that are too similar to each other. In that case, you can merge these categories and tags to improve site organization.

For example, you can merge tags with low search volume into more popular ones to improve your content’s discoverability. Similarly, merging categories can strengthen internal linking within your site, improving SEO.

To merge and bulk edit categories and tags, you must install and activate the TaxoPress plugin. For details, see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, visit the TaxoPress » Mass Edit Terms page from the WordPress dashboard and choose ‘Categories’ or ‘Tags’ from the dropdown menu at the top.

Then, click the ‘Change Selection’ button.

Bulk editing categories and tags in WordPress

The plugin will now show a list of all your posts with categories and tags.

Here, you can add a new term to a post by typing it into the box but you will need to separate each category or tag with a comma. To remove a term, just delete it. Once you are done editing, click the ‘Update All’ button to store your settings.

To merge categories and tags, visit the TaxoPress » Manage Terms page and select if you want to merge tags or categories from the dropdown menu.

Bulk managing WordPress categories and tags

After that, switch to the ‘Merge Terms’ tab and type in the categories or tags that you want to merge and separate them with a comma.

Next, type the new term for all the merged categories and tags and then click the ‘Merge’ button to store your settings.

How to bulk merge terms in a WordPress blog

You have now successfully edited and merged categories and tags.

For more detailed instructions, see our tutorial on how to merge and bulk edit categories and tags in WordPress.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily bulk move posts to categories and tags. You may also be interested in our tutorial on how to bulk add posts and pages in WordPress and our expert picks for the best block-based themes for WordPress.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

25 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
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  2. Francesco says

    Hi,
    I’m managing a website that has thousands of posts assigned to each category and, trying to achieve this with a different plugin, it reached the limit in execution time (I guess it’s a php limit?) with undefined behavior. Of course, I can’t allow this to happen again..
    Do you have any suggestion on how to bulk move categories with thousands of posts assigned? Will this plugin work?

  3. Benson says

    Is there a way to mass update which category is “primary”? I have a lot of posts that fit into a couple different categories and now see a need to make certain categories primary. Do I need to go through each post one by one to select the primary category, or is there a tool to help with that?

  4. Moore Alex says

    Your blog is very resourceful. Please how do I move my posts to specific pages on wordpress? For example I have a page called “News” and have sub menu pages under News such as Political, Local, Business.
    If I want to move a post to news sub menu “Business” how do I go about it. Please help. Thank you.

  5. francisca says

    You just solved my problem. You are the best.
    I was actually trying to change my site niche from news blog to best affiliate marketing and product reviews, however, I need to put all news categories in one page. I have to change the niche on my site because I have many customers in my super market, however, I ensure that my customers leave a review in any products the buy. however, my product review will be based on my usage review and customer review.

  6. anna says

    Hello I left a message this morning, but it has gone now, why did you delete it ? I was mot spamming the article….just asking about how to avoid google issues with a lot og disspeared categories
    I even BUY your plugins …so Im a little dissapointed you just delete my question :((

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Anna, your comment was awaiting moderation, we did not delete it. At WPBeginner we recieve lots of comments and sometimes it takes us time to go through all the comments and approve or reply them. We apologize for the inconvenience this delay caused. Thank you for your continous support, we really appreciate it.

      Admin

  7. anna says

    HEllo Thank for the great tool, I was doing it manually :(
    But what about google ?, it will create a lot of 404, do I still have to enter the 301 with a redirection plugin ? or is this pluin adding them automatically
    You make great and very helpful articles, I read a lot here (and buy your plugins) but it’s not the first time I read something here and think “but what about google, they didnt mention anything about the 301 or 404”.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Anna, redirection plugin will make sure that users are redirected with a 301 header. This will ensure that search engines follow the 301 header and understand that the page has moved to this new location.

      Admin

  8. Emily says

    Sooo why didn’t this article talk people talk? Why doesn’t it say how many tags is too many? You call this for beginners, and it isn’t. I would say it’s intermediary.

  9. A.K.Andrew says

    Fantastic post . Thanks so much for the help. I have added too many categories and only a week ago trimmed them down. I put some things in subcategories, which was helpful to be under parent categories. Is there any way to make only the Categories show up when they are listed in the categories widget in the sidebar? At the moment all the subcategories show up too. In the end I used a category cloud as the catogory list was still too long. Many Thanks

  10. Brian Snyder says

    Do you have any tips or articles that cover how to organize tags and categories properly? I have to admit I am confused about this, confused about the point of tags and categories in the first place, am very random about it, and am probably not doing it correctly.

    Thanks. Am loving the site!

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