# Can we increase the sub-category dept level?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-increase-the-sub-category-dept-level/155010
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [June 16, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-increase-the-sub-category-dept-level/155010 "2020-06-16T14:26:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ppierluigi2000](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ppierluigi2000)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2020, 2:26pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-increase-the-sub-category-dept-level/155010/1 "2020-06-16T14:26:32Z")
Dear All
we are testing this very nice software in my experiment at CERN called CMS.
Many people are asking me to understand if there is any way to increase the sub-category dept level from 2 to 3 or 4.
In our field having a category + 1 level of sub-category is not enough.
Have a nice day
Pierluigi
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### Author:  [@Canapin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Canapin)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2020, 2:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-increase-the-sub-category-dept-level/155010/2 "2020-06-16T14:36:01Z")
As far as I know it’s only available to enterprise discourse customers, and using tags is recommended as an alternative.
> [@Nesting categories in three levels](https://meta.discourse.org/t/nesting-categories-in-three-levels/110657/20):
>
> Hi Cécile – it was completed a couple of months back but on our hosted plans it is only available to Enterprise customers.
However, I’m not sure at all but I remember having read that it is possible to activate this on self-hosted forums through a hidden setting somehow?
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### Author:  [@pfaffman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pfaffman)
#### Post date: [June 16, 2020, 3:47pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-increase-the-sub-category-dept-level/155010/3 "2020-06-16T15:47:27Z")
There is a hidden `max_category_nesting` site setting that you can play with if you’re self-hosted (and you might be able to use if you’re hosted and ask nicely, but I really don’t know). You’d need to set it with an ENV variable in your `app.yml` or at the rails console. I’m pretty sure that it’s largely unsupported (my guess is that it likely _works_ because enterprise customers are using it, but you’ll probably be on your own to figure it out in the near term), so using tags is almost certainly the better approach.
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### Author:  [@system](https://meta.discourse.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2024, 10:10pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/can-we-increase-the-sub-category-dept-level/155010/4 "2024-09-04T22:10:31Z")
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