# Disabling categories
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [February 1, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350 "2014-02-01T06:17:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@lubos](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lubos)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2014, 6:17am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/1 "2014-02-01T06:17:29Z")
I would love ability to disable categories. My forum has only around 3-5 new topics a day. There is just not enough traffic to justify categorization of new topics.
So basically I’m thinking of some switch in settings that would allow to hide `Category` column, `All Categories` button and basically any UI element to do with categories. I know I could do it with CSS but there is no guarantee future updates don’t break it.
Would you agree that for small forums, category feature is unnecessary overhead and contributor to unjustified UI clutter?
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2014, 7:49am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/2 "2014-02-01T07:49:36Z")
I agree completely that on a small forum (and to be honest even the medium sized ones) categories are pointless mental overhead. The common risk is over-categorization more so than not enough:
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>
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But hiding the topic list category column in css should be fine and I cannot think of any reason that would easily break in the future.
---
### Author:  [@lubos](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lubos)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2014, 8:13am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/3 "2014-02-01T08:13:26Z")
Glad I’m not the only one. I’ve added following CSS definition to my stylesheet to hide categories.
```
th.category,
td.category,
a.badge-category,
div.category-input,
ul#category-filter li:last-of-type
{ display: none !important; }
```
---
### Author:  [@riking](https://meta.discourse.org/u/riking)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2014, 8:53am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/4 "2014-02-01T08:53:25Z")
You mean as a **customization** in the **admin panel** , not editing the stylesheets… _right_?\
😉
---
### Author:  [@lubos](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lubos)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2014, 8:59am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/5 "2014-02-01T08:59:27Z")
Yeah, I’ve inserted CSS through admin panel.
---
### Author:  [@jack2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jack2)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 2:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/6 "2017-10-23T14:42:44Z")
I can’t get @lubos’s solution to work with the current Discourse version. The reason is that pinned topics has:
- no category column,
- a first column with `colspan=2`.
So when hiding `td.category`, the resulting table has pinned topic’s rows larger than other rows.
I’ve tried to hide the second column with `td:nth-child(2)`, but it has the drawback of hiding pinned topic’s authors (plus maybe it’ll break on mobile).
Since 2014, has another solution to disable categories on small forums been implemented or figured out?
---
### Author:  [@dax](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dax)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 3:25pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/7 "2017-10-23T15:25:14Z")
Hi @jack2, try this to disabling categoriers on the topic list and on the hamburger menu:
```
.topic-list .category.sortable, .topic-list .category, .category-links.clearfix {
display: none;
}
```
If you want to disable the category box when a user open a new topic add this element too:
`.select-box .select-box-header`
---
### Author:  [@jack2](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jack2)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2017, 2:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/8 "2017-10-24T14:55:34Z")
Thanks @Trash, but it doesn’t work well for the reason I’ve explained earlier. Here is what your CSS looks like with a pinned topic:
---
### Author:  [@dax](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dax)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2017, 3:01pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/9 "2017-10-24T15:01:31Z")
Mmm I don’t see that issue with pinned topics. Let me see in my test site, where I have the Welcome topic…
---
### Author:  [@dax](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dax)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2017, 3:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/10 "2017-10-24T15:30:39Z")
@jack2 that particular topic is without category (uncategorized).
The simplest fix is to move it in a category otherwise you have to create other css code for targeting pinned topics without category
---
### Author:  [@Quintin\_Par](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Quintin_Par)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2017, 6:01pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/11 "2017-11-17T18:01:16Z")
Hi @Trash,
How can I disable the categories menu too?
---
### Author:  [@dax](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dax)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2017, 8:04pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/12 "2017-11-17T20:04:58Z")
`.list-controls .category-breadcrumb .has-drop.box { display: none; }`
---
### Author:  [@joshm](https://meta.discourse.org/u/joshm)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2018, 1:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/13 "2018-05-18T13:49:43Z")
Does anyone knows how to hide categories for all users but staff. Use case: a new site without a lot of posts, but the admin can start categorizing posts right away, for the future.
There is a .staff class in the body tag. I was trying using the : [**not** (X) property](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/%3Anot) but I wasn’t able tho achieve it.
Maybe using SCSS?
---
### Author:  [@Joshua\_Kogan](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Joshua_Kogan)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2019, 10:40pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/14 "2019-08-01T22:40:26Z")
Hi @dax, the only one of these working is removing categories from the hamburger, otherwise they’re not working. Any suggestions?
---
### Author:  [@dax](https://meta.discourse.org/u/dax)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 11:19am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/15 "2019-08-09T11:19:15Z")
In two years the classes and targets used in the CSS above will be changed. Try with
```css
.topic-list .topic-category {
display: none;
}
```
to hide the categories from the homepage.
---
### Author:  [@rapphann](https://meta.discourse.org/u/rapphann)
#### Post date: [July 2, 2022, 1:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/16 "2022-07-02T13:11:39Z")
Has someone managed to tailor the native CSS…as opposed to supplementing the native CSS with user-defined CSS to hide the unwanted parts?
Interested to hear anyone’s experience or guidance. I suppose that approach would save me some bytes on the front-end but require me to work deep in Discourse’s gut after every software upgrade?
---
### Author:  [@lejeczek](https://meta.discourse.org/u/lejeczek)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2023, 8:12am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/17 "2023-09-11T08:12:44Z")
Yes, I too think it would be really neat & useful “tweak” to have in **settings** , for each category individually. Something like **Hide category from everyone but Stuff**
---
### Author:  [@Lilly](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Lilly)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2023, 2:43pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/18 "2023-09-11T14:43:52Z")
> [@lejeczek](#):
>
> Something like **Hide category from everyone but Stuff**
Admins can set default categories to be muted in admin-settings, `default categories muted`.
You can set each category’s permissions by clicking the admin wrench in top right corner of the page for that category and going to the security tab. There you can make it so that only certain groups have access to view, reply or create.
Also, there is this theme component.
> [@Category Hider Theme Component](https://meta.discourse.org/t/category-hider-theme-component/181299):
>
> Hi all, I’ve created a simple theme component. I hope this could be of use for some! eyeglasses Overview This is a theme component that allows you to hide specific categories from either the hamburger menu or category boxes. thinking Why would you need this component? If your discourse website has a lot of categories and you would like to hide some from appearing in either the menu bar or on the main page, this component can be helpful. framed_picture Screenshots Preview of Hamburger Me…
---
### Author:  [@chapoi](https://meta.discourse.org/u/chapoi)
#### Post date: [December 4, 2025, 11:09am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disabling-categories/12350/19 "2025-12-04T11:09:21Z")