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WPBeginner» Blog» Plugins» How to Enforce One Category Per Post in WordPress

How to Enforce One Category Per Post in WordPress

Last updated on November 28th, 2014 by Editorial Staff
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How to Enforce One Category Per Post in WordPress

In our categories vs tags article, we recommend that you only select one category per post. However this can be difficult for beginners to get used to. In this article, we will show you how to enforce one category per post in WordPress. This will ensure consistency in how you sort your content.

Enhanced category metabox allowing users to select one category per post in WordPress

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If you don’t like the video or need more instructions, then continue reading.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Categories Metabox Enhanced plugin. Upon installation, you need to visit Settings » Categories Metabox Enhanced to configure the plugin.

Categories metabox enhanced settings

By default the categories metabox contains checkboxes next to category names which allows users to choose multiple categories. With Categories Metabox Enhanced plugin, you can change it into radio button or select options. Choosing a radio and select option will restrict users to select only one category at a time.

If you have a lot of categories, then choosing the radio option will make the categories metabox unusually lengthy. In that case, you would be better off with the drop down select option.

Categories metabox usually appears on the sidebar of the post editor screen. You can adjust the position and priority of categories metabox using the position option.

Among other settings, you can change the title of the categories metabox to whatever you want. You can disable indent for child categories and restrict users from creating new categories.

Categories Metabox Enhanced additional settings

That’s all, you can now save your settings and visit the post editor to see your new categories metabox in action.

We hope this article helped you enforce one category per post on your WordPress site. This plugin is also great for multi-author sites to prevent new authors from using multiple categories.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Google+.

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4 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. Anh Kiet says:
    Sep 22, 2016 at 12:52 am

    Thanks for your great post.
    How about quick edit in the list posts? I still see checkbox to select multi categories.

    Reply
  2. WPBeginner Staff says:
    Oct 2, 2014 at 8:55 pm

    Yes.

    Reply
  3. Angélica Costa says:
    Oct 2, 2014 at 7:44 pm

    It would be nice if it also did the same thing for tags. I only use a few and it would be handy.

    Reply
  4. Praveen Prasad says:
    Sep 30, 2014 at 8:37 am

    Thanks it helped me a lot. But if someone is having a site like Mashable which writes on many topics at a time like Socials, Techs, Business, Health topics and many others. Is this tip helpful for them ?

    Reply

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