WooCommerce: Exclude Category from [products] Shortcode
The WooCommerce “products” shortcode displays all products in your shop. There is even an attribute called “category” where you can specify comma-separated list of category slugs in order to further filter the output.
What you can’t do is define a list of unwanted categories (think of “uncategorized” for example) i.e. a list of categories you want to exclude from the products shortcode output.
So, here’s the fix, enjoy!
WooCommerce: exclude category from shortcodes
PHP Snippet: Exclude Category from “products” Shortcode
Let’s say we want to remove the category “black” (see above example) from the “products” shortcode. The snippet to place in your functions.php is very simple:
You can place PHP snippets at the bottom of your child theme functions.php file (delete "?>" if you have it there). CSS, on the other hand, goes in your child theme style.css file. Make sure you know what you are doing when editing such files - if you need more guidance, please take a look at my free video tutorial "Where to Place WooCommerce Customization?"
Does this snippet (still) work?
Please let me know in the comments if everything worked as expected. I would be happy to revise the snippet if you report otherwise (please provide screenshots). I have tested this code with Storefront theme, the WooCommerce version listed above and a WordPress-friendly hosting on PHP 7.3.
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Rodolfo Melogli
Business Bloomer Founder
Author, WooCommerce expert and WordCamp speaker, Rodolfo has worked as an independent WooCommerce freelancer since 2011. His goal is to help entrepreneurs and developers overcome their WooCommerce nightmares. Rodolfo loves travelling, chasing tennis & soccer balls and, of course, wood fired oven pizza.
17 thoughts on “WooCommerce: Exclude Category from [products] Shortcode”
Eduardo
It removes the specific categories form the products shortcode, but it does not bring the products specified in the “category” parameter of the shortcode. It brings any product from the shop that is not in the categories specified in this snippet, so it makes all shortcodes return the same products in the end.
How can this be used to filter out products form a specific category, but still bring just the products from the category specified on “category” parameter of the shortcode?
Thanks a lot !
This snippet helped me to make mine work when I know almost nothing about PHP. I give it to you bellow here if it helps anyone. My snippet retrieves the current category to display the shortcode [products] with the products of the category being viewed (usefull if I want to display the on_sale products of each category visited for example).
Ideally, this should be added:
– a condition not to apply if the category is already specified in the shortcode parameters
– and in this case, if the shortcode parameter entered is category=”’, then all products of all categories are displayed.
But I don’t know how to do that yet.
Didier, thanks so much for your comment! Yes, this is definitely possible, but I’m afraid it’s custom work. If you’d like to get a quote, feel free to contact me here. Thanks a lot for your understanding!
Hello Christiaan, thanks so much for your comment! Yes, this is possible – but unfortunately this is custom work and I cannot provide a complementary solution here via the blog comments. If you’d like to get a quote, feel free to contact me here. Thanks a lot for your understanding! ~R
Thank you Rodolfo for sharing your knowldege
I have a question, Can we make pages for each category by excluding the others categories or what would be the best approach to achive that?
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Of course this website itself uses the WooCommerce plugin, the Storefront theme and runs on a WooCommerce-friendly hosting.
It removes the specific categories form the products shortcode, but it does not bring the products specified in the “category” parameter of the shortcode. It brings any product from the shop that is not in the categories specified in this snippet, so it makes all shortcodes return the same products in the end.
How can this be used to filter out products form a specific category, but still bring just the products from the category specified on “category” parameter of the shortcode?
Thank you
You’re 100% right! Check the new version please
Or just use shortcode like this:
[products category="my-category-slug" cat_operator="NOT IN"]
Excellent!
Snippet dont work width brocket filter plugin. 🙁
but tnx 🙂 for the snippet, it was almost perfect 🙂
Ok
Thanks a lot !
This snippet helped me to make mine work when I know almost nothing about PHP. I give it to you bellow here if it helps anyone. My snippet retrieves the current category to display the shortcode [products] with the products of the category being viewed (usefull if I want to display the on_sale products of each category visited for example).
Ideally, this should be added:
– a condition not to apply if the category is already specified in the shortcode parameters
– and in this case, if the shortcode parameter entered is category=”’, then all products of all categories are displayed.
But I don’t know how to do that yet.
add_filter( 'woocommerce_shortcode_products_query' , 'current_category_products_shortcode'); function current_category_products_shortcode($query_args){ $cat_archive = get_queried_object(); $cat_archive_slug = $cat_archive->slug; $query_args['tax_query'] = array(array( 'taxonomy' => 'product_cat', 'field' => 'slug', 'terms' => $cat_archive_slug, 'operator' => 'IN' )); return $query_args; }It needs also a conditional logic to apply only on category and tag pages. Don’t use as is.
Didier, thanks so much for your comment! Yes, this is definitely possible, but I’m afraid it’s custom work. If you’d like to get a quote, feel free to contact me here. Thanks a lot for your understanding!
Great! Worked.
Now one thing left, how to exclude specific categories in the Top rated products widget?
Hello Christiaan, thanks so much for your comment! Yes, this is possible – but unfortunately this is custom work and I cannot provide a complementary solution here via the blog comments. If you’d like to get a quote, feel free to contact me here. Thanks a lot for your understanding! ~R
Hello,
It works with WooCommerce 3.3.1, Thank you so much, your solution saved me loads of time. 🙂
Excellent 🙂
Great function! How would I exclude 2 or multiple categories? Thanks!
Hey Bobby, thanks so much for your comment! You’d add categories here:
array('black','red','white','etc'),Thank you Rodolfo for sharing your knowldege
I have a question, Can we make pages for each category by excluding the others categories or what would be the best approach to achive that?
Hey Vale, thanks for your comment! You already have those pages by default, go to Products > Categories and you can access them.