WooCommerce: “Bulk Edit” > Remove Categories @ Admin Products List

Go to WordPress Dashboard > Products, select more than one product, and then go to the Bulk Actions dropdown and choose “Edit“.

You’re now presented with a simple yet effective bulk edit window, where you can do basic product fields editing such as changing the price in bulk, assign the same tag in bulk, set a sale price percentage in bulk, and so on. You can even assign one or more categories to the selected products.

But wait – it seems you cannot remove product categories from all selected products, which is a bummer! Well, I’m not sure if this is a WooCommerce choice, but honestly it’s such a basic thing that I’m surprised there is no bulk edit option for that.

So, let’s fix this. Let’s add a custom select dropdown with a list of product categories – whenever a category is selected, this will be removed from all checked products. Enjoy!

PHP Snippet: Add “Remove Product Category” To The Bulk Edit Options @ Admin Products Table

Note: WooCommerce products are required to belong to at least one product category by design. If you bulk remove the only category from a list of products, they will be reassigned to your “default” product category.

Which means the “Bulk Remove Product Category” functionality you find below will only work if either (a) products belong to 2 or more product categories or (b) in the bulk edit window you ADD at least one category and REMOVE the current category at the same time. Hope I’ve explained it clearly.

/**
 * @snippet       Bulk Remove Product Categories @ WooCommerce Products Admin
 * @how-to        Get CustomizeWoo.com FREE
 * @author        Rodolfo Melogli
 * @compatible    WooCommerce 8
 * @donate $9     https://businessbloomer.com/bloomer-armada/
 */

add_action( 'woocommerce_product_bulk_edit_start', 'bbloomer_bulk_edit_remove_product_category' );

function bbloomer_bulk_edit_remove_product_category() {
	?>		
	<div class="inline-edit-group">
		<label class="alignleft">
			<span class="title">Delete Cat</span>
			<span class="input-text-wrap">
				<?php wc_product_dropdown_categories( [ 'class' => 'remove_product_cat', 'name' => 'remove_product_cat', 'show_option_none' => 'Select product category to be removed', 'value_field' => 'term_id' ] ); ?>
			</span>
		</label>
	</div>			
	<?php
}

add_action( 'woocommerce_product_bulk_edit_save', 'bbloomer_bulk_edit_remove_product_category_save', 9999 );
 
function bbloomer_bulk_edit_remove_product_category_save( $product ) {
	$post_id = $product->get_id();    
	if ( isset( $_REQUEST['remove_product_cat'] ) ) {
		$cat_to_remove = $_REQUEST['remove_product_cat'];
		$categories = $product->get_category_ids();
		if ( ! in_array( $cat_to_remove, $categories ) ) return;
		if ( ( $key = array_search( $cat_to_remove, $categories ) ) !== false ) {
			unset( $categories[$key] );
		}
		$product->set_category_ids( $categories );
		$product->save();
	}
}