WooCommerce: How to Alter Cart Items Count

We’ve already seen how to exclude hidden products from the WooCommerce Mini-Cart widget counter; today I want to expand on the same concept and try to recalculate / alter such counter based on custom criteria.

For example, some business models require to count the number of distinct items in the Cart, no matter their respective cart quantities. So, if there are 2x “Item 1” and 4x “Item 2”, this altered counter would show 1+1=2 and not 2+4=6. So, let’s see how this is done – enjoy!

PHP Snippet: Custom Cart Item Count @ WooCommerce Mini Cart Header Widget

/**
 * @snippet       Alter Cart Counter @ WooCommerce Cart Widget
 * @how-to        Get CustomizeWoo.com FREE
 * @author        Rodolfo Melogli
 * @testedwith    WooCommerce 4.6
 * @donate $9     https://businessbloomer.com/bloomer-armada/
 */

add_filter( 'woocommerce_cart_contents_count', 'bbloomer_alter_cart_contents_count', 9999, 1 );

function bbloomer_alter_cart_contents_count( $count ) {
	$count = count( WC()->cart->get_cart() );
	return $count;
}

Related posts:

1. WooCommerce: Hide Shipping Rates if Free Shipping Available
2. WooCommerce: Add Product to Cart On Visit Programmatically
3. WooCommerce: Display Total Discount / Savings @ Cart & Checkout
4. WooCommerce Conditional Logic – Tags, Examples & PHP
5. WooCommerce: Display Total Weight @ Cart & Checkout
6. WooCommerce: Product List View @ Shop
7. WooCommerce: Split Cart Items When Product Quantity > 1
8. WooCommerce: Check if Product ID is in the Cart
9. WooCommerce: Add Product to Cart When Visiting a Specific Page
10. WooCommerce: Show Product Stock @ Cart Page

Where to add this snippet?

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?

If you think this code saved you time & money, feel free to join 14,000+ WooCommerce Weekly subscribers for blog post updates or 250+ Business Bloomer supporters for 365 days of WooCommerce benefits. Thank you in advance :)

Need Help with WooCommerce?

Check out these free video tutorials. You can learn how to customize WooCommerce without unnecessary plugins, how to properly configure the WooCommerce plugin settings and even how to master WooCommerce troubleshooting in case of a bug!

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.

Follow @rmelogli