Do you want to merge and bulk edit categories and tags in WordPress?
After a while, most WordPress blogs need some spring cleaning. Sometimes this requires moving posts between categories and tags, or merging similar categories and tags together.
In this article, we’ll show you how to merge and bulk edit categories and tags in WordPress easily.
When Do You Need to Merge Categories and Tags in WordPress?
When building your WordPress site, you’ll use categories and tags to organize your website content.
This makes it easy for website visitors to quickly find the content they’re looking for. Properly using categories and tags is also good for improving your WordPress SEO rankings.
But over time, you may have too many categories and tags that you’re not using anymore. Or, your categories and tags might be too similar and can be filed under a single category or tag.
One way to solve this issue is to edit each WordPress blog post and reassign the categories and tags. However, if you have a lot of posts, then this can be time consuming.
The best solution is to bulk edit your WordPress categories and tags.
With that said, let’s take a look at how to bulk edit and merge categories in WordPress, step by step.
Bulk Edit Categories and Tags with Built-in WordPress Settings
The WordPress posts dashboard has built in settings that let you manage your post categories and tags.
If you want to assign a category to multiple posts, add tags, or transfer single posts from one category to another, then you can do this within your WordPress admin dashboard.
Bulk Add Multiple Posts to a New WordPress Category
First, navigate to Posts » All Posts and check the box next to the posts you want to change.
Then, click on the ‘Bulk actions’ drop down, select the ‘Edit’ option, and click ‘Apply’.
This brings up a new section that shows the bulk editing tools.
To add the posts to a new category, simply check the box for the new category or categories. You can also add new post tags to the ‘Tags’ box.
Note: Posts can only be added to new categories, they can’t be deleted from the existing category.
Then, click the ‘Update’ button.
Now your posts will be automatically assigned to the new category you selected.
Manually Transfer Posts to New WordPress Categories
If you only have a few posts, then you can transfer posts to a new category individually.
In the post dashboard, hover over the post you want to edit and click the ‘Quick Edit’ button.
This brings up a section similar to the bulk editing tools section above.
Now, you can uncheck the current category and check the box for the new category. You can also add or delete tags from the ‘Tags’ box.
Make sure to click the ‘Update’ button to save your changes.
Merge and Bulk Edit Categories and Tags in WordPress
If you want to merge and bulk edit categories and tags, then you’ll need to use a WordPress plugin.
We recommend using the Term Management Tools plugin. It makes it easy to bulk manage your tags and categories with a couple of clicks.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to go to Posts » Categories and click the ‘Bulk Actions’ drop down menu.
You’ll notice there are a few new bulk actions that have been added to the menu. Now, you can set a new parent category, merge categories and tags together, and change taxonomies.
Merge WordPress Category into Another Category
To merge categories, simply check the box next to the categories you want to merge.
Next, select ‘Merge’ from the ‘Bulk actions’ drop down and type the name of the category you want to merge.
Then, click the ‘Apply’ button.
Move From WordPress Category to Tag or Custom Taxonomy
To switch an existing category into a tag, simply check the box for the category.
Then, select ‘Change taxonomy’ from the ‘Bulk actions’ drop down and then select your tag or custom taxonomy from the drop down.
After that, click the ‘Apply’ button.
Your category will now switch over to a post tag or custom taxonomy.
Assign Parent Category to Multiple Categories
Next, you can assign a single parent category to multiple categories.
To do this, check the boxes for your new child categories and select ‘Set parent’ from the ‘Bulk actions’ drop down.
Then, choose your parent category from the ‘None’ drop down and click ‘Apply’.
If you want to switch from tags to categories and merge existing tags together, then simply go to Posts » Tags.
Then, follow the same steps as above.
We hope this article helped you learn how to merge and bulk edit categories and tags in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to get a free SSL certificate and our expert picks of the best GoDaddy alternatives.
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Vitor says
Thank you so much guys! It works perfectly
WPBeginner Support says
Glad our guide was helpful
Admin
Ellis Benus Columbia, MO Web Developer says
This plugin hasn’t been updated in 5 years. Is there a new one you can recommend?
WPBeginner Support says
We don’t have an alternative we would recommend at the moment but this plugin should still be working. For the plugin not being updated you may want to take a look at our article below:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/opinion/should-you-install-plugins-not-tested-with-your-wordpress-version/
Admin
Jim Gersetich says
The Term Management Tools plugin is out of date. It hasn’t been updated for four years. You might consider revising this page.
WPBeginner Support says
Thank you for letting us know about this, we will certainly look into alternatives as soon as we are able
Admin
Afzaal Ashraf says
It Works Perfectly
WPBeginner Support says
Glad our recommended method worked
Admin
Valerian says
I’m relieved to read that it still works although the plugin hasn’t been updated in quite a while. I wasn’t able to find an up to date plugin that performs similarly. This site has been a huge help to me – thank you!
WPBeginner Support says
You’re welcome
David says
This plugin “Term Management Tools” no longer exists on the WordPress plugin repository.
WPBeginner Support says
The plugin is still available but has not been updated. We will be sure to take a look into alternatives
Admin
Nancy Proctor says
I have been spring cleaning my tags and categories. I would like to update a number of posts with the correct tags. I downloaded several of your suggestions like Simple Tag.
What I want to do: I have a tag ‘Health’ and a number of exisiting posts about the local hospital. Can I do a search on content and add tag to posts.
thank you. I wish I had found you earlier!!
Katie Corder says
After you merge or convert tags with this plug-in, does the original tag URL merge with it, or does it a create a 404 error that then results in the creation of a 301 redirect? Thanks!
Richard Sandbrook says
I had just completed the task of rationalizing categories categories and tags when I discovered – too late – this post. My question is this: I have made the changes on WordPress, but I have not made the myriad of redirections using the Redirection plug-in (mainly because I don’t understand what information to fill in). If I do not redirect, will that be a major problem for searchers using search engines?
WPBeginner Support says
People coming from search to a category or tag page will see a 404 error. If a lot of your traffic lands on such pages, then you will loose significant traffic.
Admin
WPBeginner Staff says
Uncategorized is actually also a category and you can move its posts using the plugin just like all other categories.
Tom Dupuis says
What about bulk moving uncategorized posts to another category? There’s no checkbox for the uncategroized option.
WPBeginner Staff says
Jason that’s because unlike categories, Tags are not hierarchical and can not have parent or child tags. Please take a look at our guide on Categories vs Tags.
Jason Crawford says
I’m not sure why I didn’t reply to this when I saw it the first time. I felt a bit dunce. You’re right and I was overlooking that. Thanks for the response.
Jason Crawford says
I must be missing something here. I thought I’d run over and check it out, but I can’t see an option for parent/child tags.
mac says
works well but can not bulk delete cats from multiple posts. Thats a big problem when you want to delete a category from a post but not actually delete the cat itself
Max says
This is great, but you might want to touch on 301 redirects for the post that are merging into a new category or your probably going to be losing a lot of search enginge traffic.
Editorial Staff says
That would only impact you if your posts use category in their permalink structure like our site does. In that case, you would need to use a plugin like Redirection:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-track-404-pages-and-redirect-them-in-wordpress/
This will take care of most things for you.
Admin
Jamie Smith says
I’m sorry to be a dolt, but I’m trying to figure out if this is what I’m looking for. I want to change my categories all together and remove some, make some child categories, etc. It’s not really about moving posts for me, it’s about the category structure. Is this plugin still what I need to use?
Editorial Staff says
You can use this plugin to merge two categories.
Admin
Gautam Doddamani says
thanks now i can clean out my blog from unwanted tags…just one question i wanted to ask…will the deleted tags and categories get removed from posts and will it effect my SEO…as they will ultimately lead to 404 errors in GWT…
Bill Saragosa says
Thanks for this post… I was wondering what I was going to do with some of those clumsy categories that no longer look like such a good idea! Now I have a starting point.
Cheers,
Bill
Bernie says
Wish I had know about this when I started tidying up my blog some time ago. This has made me get rid of all the uncategorised post on my blog. Additionally this organisation is helping me focus the post on my blog. I already use another plugin that creates pages based on Categories.
Keep the good work coming!
Bjorn says
Can this tool also add new tags quickly to posts? Because i imported like 500 messages from my old website where i did not use wordpress and tags.
Noumaan says
Bjorn you can try the bulk edit mode in Posts > All Posts. If all 500 messages are imported as posts and you have a limited number of categories then you can select multiple posts and assign them tags.
Michael says
Man, this couldn’t have come at a better time. I was just staring at my personal website, which is pretty old, in utter dismay. I have 399 tags that have accumulated over the years, as well as categories that are ancient, and was dreading cleaning up such a huge mess. I’m going to put this plugin to the test!