In this tutorial, I will teach you how to hide the categories in WooCommerce using the Restriction Rules plugin. Whether you want to restrict your product category to everyone or a select group of users, I’ll cover that and more.
Categories are the collection of specific types of products. Normally, WooCommerce stores have different types of categories for particular products. A clothing store may have categories such as shirts, hoodies, t-shirts, pants, etc. which include only the related products to it. For example, the hoodies category contains only hoodies, the shirts category contains only shirts, etc..
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Why should you hide the category in WooCommerce?
There are multiple reasons to hide the categories from the WooCommerce store. When you hide the selected categories from the specific customers, it will restrict the users from seeing those categories on the store page. All the products in those categories will also be hidden from the store. With the Restriction Rules plugin, you can set multiple restriction rules to make store private mode, enable password protection, and restrict menu items.
The store page can be the most important page on your WooCommerce site. The customers view your store page and make a purchase so you might need to hide certain products and categories on the store page not available to the general public. You can hide products based on user groups, categories, tags, or for a specific user using the Restriction Rules plugin. Similarly, you can set the password for products and hide the store from the users. It is easy to set up and create restriction rules for users to tailor the user experience.
How to hide the category in WooCommerce?
We have created the following simple steps to help you to hide the category in WooCommerce. You need to follow these steps from the beginning to hide the category.
Step 1: Install and Activate the Woosuite core plugin
First, you need to download a plugin file to your device and upload it to your site.
To upload, go to Plugins>>Add New>>Upload Plugin. Then choose the plugin file and click Install Now.
After installing the plugin, make sure you activate the plugin to use it on the WooCommerce site.
Step 2: Install and Activate the Restriction Rules plugin
Now, you need to install the Restriction Rules plugin which allows you to hide the products and categories from specific users.
Go to Woosuite>>Addons and click Install Now on the Restriction Rules section.
After the plugin is installed, you need to activate the plugin as shown below.
Step 3: Choose the users to apply the rule
Then you will be able to use the Restriction Rules plugin features on your site.
Go to Woosuite>>Restriction Rules. From the Hide Post/Page Rules, you can configure the settings and easily hide the categories in the Woocommerce.
From the Applies To, you can select the user roles to apply the rule.
- Everyone: The rule will be applied to all users on the site.
- Guests: Only non-registered users will be affected.
- Specific Roles: It allows you to choose specific user roles from the list. For example, administrator, editor, author, contributor, subscriber, customer, and shop manager.
- Specific Users: You can select the individual users by their usernames to apply the rule.
For this tutorial, we will choose Everyone so the rule will be applied to all the users.
Step 4: Select the categories to hide in WooCommerce
After choosing the audiences, you need to select the page you want to hide. As we want to hide the category, we have to select Product Categories.
Then you need to choose the categories you want to hide on the WooCommerce store. You can also choose multiple categories at the same time.
As you can see, we have selected two categories, Hoodies and T-shirts to hide from the store.
Step 5: Save changes and view the result
After configuring all the settings as mentioned above, you need to save the changes to apply to the site.
After you click Save changes, go to the store and search for the categories you chose to hide from the store. You will find all the products in those categories are hidden from the store.
Users will not find the categories even if they search on the store.
Hide Product Rules
You can also create the rule to hide the category from the Hide Product Rules which can be found just below the Hide Post/Page Rules. You will find similar options and methods to hide the products and categories.
As you can see below, it is the same way how we hide the product categories in the above steps.
Frequently Asked Questions
A. How can I hide the category in WooCommerce?
You can easily hide the category in WooCommerce by using the Restriction Rules plugin.
B. Can I choose the specific users to hide the category from?
The Restriction Rules plugin allows you to choose the specific users so you can hide the category from the selected users only.
C. What happens if I hide the category from the WooCommerce store?
When you hide the category from the WooCommerce store, all the products in the selected category will be hidden from the store and no one will be able to find and buy the products.
Conclusion
This article introduces you to the simplest method to hide the category in WooCommerce. With the Restriction Rules plugin, you can easily hide the products and categories from certain users. We hope you will be able to hide the category in your WooCommerce store. If you still have any confusion, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
