How to Hide WooCommerce Products (Without Deleting Them!)

Selling online with WooCommerce is fantastic, but sometimes you need to temporarily remove products from your storefront. Maybe you’re out of stock, the product needs updating, or it’s part of a limited-time promotion. Deleting the product is a permanent solution, and that’s not always what you want. This guide shows you how to hide WooCommerce products without losing your data, keeping things simple for beginners.

Why Hide, Not Delete?

Before we dive into the methods, let’s clarify why hiding a product is often preferable to deleting it:

• Preserve Product Data: Deleting a product means losing all its information—images, descriptions, attributes, and more. If you decide to re-list it later, you’ll have to recreate everything.
• Maintain Inventory History: Hiding a product keeps its sales history and inventory data intact. This is crucial for analyzing sales trends and managing your stock effectively.
• Easy Re-listing: Unhiding a product is quick and easy, unlike creating a new one from scratch. Imagine having a seasonal product – hiding and unhiding is far more efficient than deleting and recreating!
• SEO Benefits (Sometimes): While not always the case, hiding a low-performing or outdated product can improve your overall site’s SEO by removing irrelevant content.

Method 1: Using WooCommerce’s Built-in Functionality

This is the easiest and most recommended way to hide WooCommerce products. WooCommerce provides a simple checkbox to manage product visibility.

• Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
• Navigate to Products > All Products.

Find the product you want to hide.

Edit the product by clicking on its title.

On the right-hand sidebar, under the “Product data” section, you’ll find a checkbox labeled “Enable this product?” or similar.

Uncheck this box. This will hide the product from your shop’s main catalog and search results.

Click “Update” to save your changes.

Real-life Example: Imagine you sell handmade jewelry. If a particular necklace runs out of stock temporarily, you can uncheck this box instead of deleting the product details. Once you restock, simply re-check the box!

Method 2: Using Product Categories (For Targeted Hiding)

If you want to hide multiple products at once with similar characteristics, managing categories can be beneficial.

• Create a new category (e.g., “Hidden Products” or “Discontinued Items”) within your WooCommerce product categories.

Assign the products you want to hide to this category.

Remove the newly created category from your main navigation menu, thus preventing customers from accessing these products.

Real-life Example: Let’s say you’re phasing out a line of old t-shirts. You can create a category for these “Discontinued Items,” assign the products to it, and remove it from your shop’s main menu. This keeps the products on your site, but out of view, maintaining your inventory history for future analysis.

Method 3: Using WooCommerce Plugins (Advanced Options)

Several plugins offer more advanced product management features, including hiding products based on various criteria (e.g., inventory levels, dates, customer groups). This is usually more complex for beginners and is best explored once you’ve mastered the basic methods above.

Important Note: Hidden Products vs. Draft Products

Remember that hiding a product is different from setting it to “Draft.” A draft product isn’t visible on your shop *and* is generally incomplete, in the process of creation or editing. Hiding a product, on the other hand, maintains its “Published” status but simply removes it from view.

By using these methods, you can efficiently manage your WooCommerce product catalog, ensuring you keep only the relevant items on display for your customers while preserving all your valuable data. Remember to always back up your website regularly!