This has been bugging the WordPress community quite often. The main issue is that the Uncategorized
category is set as the default category in the WordPress dashboard. Just go to Settings -> Writing and check at the top!
Here are a few scenarios to deal with the issue.
Rename the Uncategorized category
In the WordPress backend, go to Posts -> Categories and click the Uncategorized category to rename it. You can also use the Quick Edit link.
You can then assign the category to a blog post.
Delete the Uncategorized category
In addition to the previous solution, you can also unassign it as a default category, rename it and delete it. Go to Settings -> Writing and select a different Default Post Category from the dropdown.
Once a different default category has been selected, you can head back to Posts -> Categories. You will then be able to not only rename the Uncategorized
category but also delete it since it is not the default category anymore.
Keep the Uncategorized category and hide it from the frontend
There might be cases that you might want to keep the Uncategorized
category as it is. Your editors might find it handy to have blog posts saved for review in this category for convenience. In this case, you can leave it as it unless you display your categories in the front end through the use of a widget, for example.
In this case, use the following PHP snippet to hide the Uncategorized
category from the front end:
function custom_category_widget($args) { $exclude = "1"; // Category IDs to be excluded $args["exclude"] = $exclude; return $args; } add_filter("widget_categories_args","custom_category_widget");
And you will have something like this: