Assigning products to categories, including in bulk

Step by step: one product

1. Go to Catalog → Products and click the product row.
2. Open the Categories tab.
3. Click Add in the top-right corner of the section.
4. In the Product categories window, enter part of a name or path in Search categories..., then click a result. The category is assigned immediately; assigned entries have a green checkmark.
5. If the list is empty, No categories found means “nothing matches the search,” and Select a catalog first means “this product has no catalog.”
6. Close the window with Close.
7. On the Categories tab, use the star and Set as primary to choose the primary category. Remove an unnecessary assignment with the Remove X (A product’s primary category).

The first category assigned automatically becomes primary.

Step by step: several products at once

The bulk assignment window is in English.

1. Go to Catalog → Products and filter the list by catalog. This is no longer needed for data safety (see “Bulk assignment filters by catalog automatically” below), but without it the “updated” count in the summary may be misleadingly lower than the number of selected products.
2. Select products (Bulk actions on products).
3. Click Categories in the selection bar. You do not select a catalog in this window; the system reads it from the selection and refuses if the products come from different catalogs or have none.
4. Check the blue Catalog: box at the top of Assign Categories to Products.
5. Enter part of a name in Categories \* and select one or more categories.
6. Set the two checkboxes: Include parent categories (checked by default) also assigns the parent categories; Overwrite existing categories deletes existing assignments in this catalog.
7. Click Preview Changes.
8. In Preview Category Assignment, review Current Categories, New Categories, and To Add. Back to Edit returns to the form; Cancel stops.
9. Confirm with Assign Categories.
10. Read the message. It reports the number of products updated, assignments created, and items skipped.

Bulk assignment does not set a primary category; none of the selected products becomes primary this way. Set the primary category separately on the product card.

One product

Set categories in the Categories tab on the product card. A product can have many, but only one primary (A product’s primary category).

Setting a new primary category automatically demotes the previous one.

The category must belong to the same catalog as the product; otherwise, saving is rejected (What is a catalog).

Bulk assignment

Select rows in the product list and follow the steps above. The window requires a preview before applying because it has two options with significant effects.

Overwrite deletes without warning

Overwrite existing categories removes all existing categories from the selected products in this catalog—including their primary category—and replaces them with the selected ones.

There is no confirmation beyond the preview and no way to undo the operation. With a hundred selected products, this is a significant action.

This operation does not set the primary category

The bulk window has no “set as primary” option, so none of the selected products will receive a primary category this way. If a particular category should be primary, set it later on each product card (A product’s primary category).

Bulk assignment filters by catalog automatically

The bulk operation checks the catalog on both sides: categories must belong to the selected catalog, and products—whether selected manually or chosen through “all matching filters”—are also limited to that catalog. A product outside the selected catalog is silently skipped: it does not receive a category or count toward “updated,” but no error or warning appears on screen.

Practical consequence: you cannot use this operation to assign a category from another catalog to a product. Still, filter the product list by catalog before selecting; otherwise, the final “updated” count may be lower than the number of selected products, with no obvious explanation.

Operation size limit

One bulk assignment request can handle up to 10,000 products and up to 500 categories. Above the product limit, the operation rejects the entire request (an error; nothing is saved) rather than applying it partially. This also applies to “all matching filters” if the filter returns more than the limit. For such large sets, narrow the filters or split the operation into smaller batches.

Import does not create categories

A file import never creates new categories and does not unlink existing ones. An unknown category path produces only a warning and is skipped.

Create categories before importing; do not expect them to be created from the file.