Create a category in Discourse

[Discourse]

This guide describes how to create a category in Discourse.

Required user level: Administrator (or moderator if the moderators manage categories setting is enabled)

Categories are meant to hold a collection of topics that have similar subject matter. They include an abundance of configuration options you won’t find with the lighter-weight tagging feature.

By default, category creation is limited to admin users. Moderators can be given the ability to create categories by enabling the moderators manage categories site setting.

Creating a category

There are 2 ways to start the category creation process:

1. Select the Categories link at the top of the home page

2. Navigate to /categories (e.g., your-site.com/categories)

On the Categories page, select the + New category button near the upper-right of the page to start:

This will open the category creation page where you can create and configure your new category:

The only mandatory field is Category name. All other category settings are optional. After entering the category name, click Create category to create the category.

Style

The Style section on the General tab lets you choose how the category badge is displayed:

• Square (default) — a colored square, the traditional category badge style
• Icon — a Font Awesome icon in the category color
• Emoji — an emoji as the category badge

You can also set the Color and Text color for the category badge in this section.

Description

After creating the category, you can click Edit description to take you to the category description topic. You should then edit this topic with information about the category’s purpose, so members know how to use this category.

Creating a subcategory

Creating a subcategory is similar to creating a category, just with an extra step. These steps will start from the Categories page using any of the methods listed above.

1. On the Categories page, select the + New category button.
2. Enter the name for your subcategory.
3. Under Parent category, select the category you’d like your subcategory to be nested under.
4. Edit the category settings like the style, which groups can see/reply/or create posts, logo, etc.
5. Save the changes

Any group that is allowed to access a subcategory must also be allowed to access the parent category

Additional resources

The following two guides are particularly relevant when getting started with categories:

1. How to create private categories using category security settings - control which user groups have the ability to see, create, and reply to topics in the category.

2. How to reorder / adjust category listings and set fixed category positions - understand how to arrange your categories on the main Categories page (especially useful when the Categories page is set as your home page)

Last edited by @lindsey 2025-12-03T14:20:23Z

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[pacharanero (Marcus Baw)]

This topic may need updating to reflect the new Styles section in the Category creation dialog, which includes the ability to add icons/emoji. And possibly also link from the now deprecated Theme Component Category Icons to here.