Delete Your Uncategorized Category in WordPress (Default Categories)
By Dave Moyer, posted Jan 12 2010 at 6:00 am | 5 Comments ยป
When we were recording WordCast 69: Beth is Back with Beth Skinner, Beth happened to mention that she “always knew that you couldn’t delete the Uncategorized category”. This, however, is by no means true! You can delete that annoying category that should never be used, and it’s easy too!
After hearing Beth’s confusion about the concept, I realized that there are many who might be afflicted with “Uncategorized” as their default category, and you don’t need USS WordPress Commander Lorelle VanFossen to tell you why that’s bad.
The reason that Uncategorized is, by default, seemingly “un-deletable”. The delete option just isn’t available in your category listings. However, it doesn’t have to be that way.
The reason that you can’t delete Uncategorized is because it’s your default category when you install WordPress. The default category is the one that posts will be automatically shoved into if you fail to select another category when publishing a post. It’s also the category that posts get filed under when their category is deleted. In order to delete Uncategorized, all you have to do is set another category as your default!
Changing your default category
Head to Settings>>Writing in your WordPress admin panel. You’ll see a dropdown labeled “Default Post Category” (shown below). Change it, and you officially have changed your default post category. (Imagine that!)
WordCast's default post and link categories
Congratulations! You can now delete Uncategorized, which will move all the posts within it to a new default category (if you want all of them somewhere else, temporarily change the default to where you want the posts to go). We recommend setting the default post category to the most commonly used or most general category you might have, just in case you forget to categorize something down the road.
Hopefully this tip will help you down your bloggy road! Use it wisely, and thanks for reading WordCast!
No offense but this is more than just a beginner mistake. I always wonder how many blogs still have their “Uncategorized” category (even if they never posted something within it).
If you need a place to start and don’t want to make those same mistakes. Check out this forum thread:
http://wordcast.bitwiremedia.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=9
You’re very right, Nicolas. It’s so much of a problem that Lorelle’s biggest presentation at WordCamps throughout 2009 was all about kicking the ominous “Uncategorized Fever!”
I think people simply try to delete it, then, like Beth did, just assume you can’t and move on, leaving a cluttered blog. Hopefully we can help clean it up!
I just choose to rename the category instead of deleting it.
Guess that works just fine as well!
That’s always an option too! I guess we should have mentioned that. Thanks, Ajay!