Here’s a cool new wordpress plugin that allows you to assign one or more categories to multiple posts in a single shot, with or without preserving existing categories.

This plugin will be very useful when you are migrating to your own wordpress blog, hosted on your domain. The default wordpress functionality is that, you can assign new categories to posts only by editing each post and changing the category assigned to it. So, if you have a large number of posts, then it will be a nightmare.

Enter this plugin.

With this plugin, assigning multiple categories to one or more posts is a breeze. Pop the plugin’s PHP file to your wordpress plugin directory, activate it and click on “Assign Categories” under the Manage menu. The page will show the list of available categories, followed by the available blog posts. You can select the categories, select the required posts and then click on “Assign Categories” at the bottom of the page. Now, all your posts will be assigned the new categories.

The plugin is licensed under GPL v2 (the same as wordpress).

Download the plugin, take it for a test drive and let me know.

24 Responses to “Bulk Assign Categories to Multiple Posts”

  1. Waves » Blog Archive » Barcamp Chennai 2 - Interesting! Says:

    […] session on the recent “Assign Categories” wordpress plugin was next. Response was good and I’m happy. After this, there was a […]

  2. Barbara Nixon Says:

    Wow. From the time I googled “assign new category to multiple posts in WordPress” until I had completed the installation and new assignment of categories was fewer than five minutes. I’m impressed. You saved me at least an hour of work today. Thanks!

  3. Aswin Anand Says:

    @Barbara: Thanks a lot for downloading the plugin and trying it out. Glad to hear that its been of use.

  4. Madhur Kapoor Says:

    Hi Aswin, the plugin is great. It saved me a lot of time. There is one thing i want to suggest you. The plugin displays 20 posts at one time and while moving between different pages , the posts which i have selected in previous page gets de-selected. Maybe this is something you can work on.

    Thanks again for this wonderful plugin

  5. Aswin Anand Says:

    @Madhur: Thanks a lot for trying out the plugin. I didn’t give that feature mainly to eliminate confusion that users may have when they are selecting posts in multiple pages. Yep, your’s is a valid suggestion and it will be considered for the next iteration.

  6. danny Says:

    This plugin is not useful without this simple options:

    – Ability to filter all posts by categories
    – Ability to add/remove just one category without change others

    Please, notify me if you put this features in next version.

  7. Aswin Anand Says:

    @Danny: Thanks a lot for trying out this plugin. I will add the “filter by category” soon, when time permits.

    Regarding “add/remove just one category without change others”, this feature is already available. After installing the plugin, you need to select “Preserve existing categories for selected posts”.

  8. Assign Catégories, WP plugin en français ! | le blogueur masqué Says:

    […] Assign Catégories est un plugin WordPress conçu par Aswin Anand. Un plugin qui s’avère très utile et que je cherche depuis un bon moment. Le plugin va vous permettre d’assigner une ou plusieurs catégorie (s) aux articles de votre choix et surtout en un seul clic. Vous avez la possibilité de choisir: […]

  9. Alan F. Says:

    I have tested this plugin on a few posts and it seems to work great.

    I have a blog that has a huge number of categories that have become difficult to manage.

    It would be great of the search feature had advanced features so that you could search only categories intead of categories and text. That way you could easily find all post in a category and bulk change the category name.

    Keep up the great work on a very useful plugin!

    Alan F.

  10. Aswin Anand Says:

    Hello Alan, thanks a lot for dropping by and testing my plugin. Quite a few people have requested this feature and am implementing it. It will be out in a few days & announced here.

  11. jonah Says:

    I can’t install the pluggin. I need to assign 1 category to a ton of old posts. can someone email me what i am doing wrong? Using on the latest version of WP

  12. jonah Says:

    a buddy got it to work! This pluggin saved me hours if not months of work- 698 posts assigned categories in less then 30 mins! Thanks a ton

  13. Aswin Anand Says:

    Jonah, thanks a lot for trying out the plugin. May I know why you couldn’t assign categories during the first time? What problem did you face? Let me know so that it can be rectified in the next release.

  14. brendan Says:

    Hello.

    I’ve installed the plugin fine….but i cant seem to find the “manage” section?

    Where do i actually use this plugin?

  15. Aswin Anand Says:

    Brendan, may I know which version of wordpress you are using? If it is wordpress 2.7, you can find “Assign Categories” under the “Tools” menu.

  16. brendan Says:

    ah haaa. yes indeed! Thanks so much!

  17. brendan Says:

    and yes…definitely searching and updating whole categories would be a huge help.

    Little tricky to update 1,000 entries without that.

  18. harlie Says:

    hi – just wondering if this plugin is compatible with WordPress 3.0.1 as I cannot seem to find any similar plugin and am looking for this functionality exactly.
    Thanks!

  19. Aswin Anand Says:

    It is compatible, Harlie.

  20. Alan Says:

    Still works with 3.1 from what I can tell. Thanks Aswin! It’d be great if it were on the WordPress Plugin listings though, as I almost didn’t find it. =)

  21. Aswin Anand Says:

    Thanks Alan 🙂 . Am adding it there right away.

  22. Mahesh Says:

    Great plugin. It really helped me 🙂

  23. Shanx Says:

    Aswin. Truly, thanks SO much. This was written long ago, but in 2012, with version 3.3.1 it still works. You should put this on the WordPress repository so more people can benefit from this VERY VERY USEFUL plugin. Many thanks for some fantastic work!

  24. Rachael Taylor Says:

    Thank you so much! You seriously saved me an entire day of work! Really appreciate it!