What it does

Posts and pages go to the trash when you delete them. Categories and tags don’t: one click on "Delete" and the term is gone. WordPress also moves its posts to "Uncategorized", moves its child categories up a level and removes it from your menus. Getting it back means restoring a database backup.

Category & Tag Trash keeps every deleted term for 30 days (or 7, 90 or 365, your choice).

Undo appears the moment you delete a term, on the Categories, Tags or any other term screen, for single and bulk deletes. Restore later from Tools > Category & Tag Trash puts back:

the term itself, with the same ID, name, slug, description and parent,
all of its term meta (colours, images, SEO fields stored by other plugins),
every post it was assigned to, in the same order,
its child terms, moved back underneath it,
the menu links that pointed to it, in the same menu and position, with their sub-items,
and it removes "Uncategorized" from posts that only got it because of the deletion.

Keeping the same ID matters: navigation blocks, widgets and shortcodes that point to the term by ID work again without editing them.

Works with categories, tags, WooCommerce product categories and attributes, and any custom taxonomy that has an admin screen.

Free and open source under the GPL. No pro version, no upsells, no ads in wp-admin, no tracking. And it stays that way.

Where to find it

Tools > Category & Tag Trash lists deleted terms with what they were attached to, who deleted them and when. Filter by taxonomy, search, restore or delete in bulk, see exactly which posts, child terms and menus a restore brings back, and empty the trash.
Every category and tag screen has a link to it under the list.

WP-CLI

wp category-tag-trash list
wp category-tag-trash restore <id>...
wp category-tag-trash delete <id>... or wp category-tag-trash delete --all

Install

Download axle-category-tag-trash.zip (v3.0.0).
In wp-admin, go to Plugins > Add New Plugin > Upload Plugin and choose the zip.
Click Install Now, then Activate.

Or with WP-CLI:

$ wp plugin install https://github.com/aryanjasala/axle-category-tag-trash/releases/download/v3.0.0/axle-category-tag-trash.zip --activate

To try it first, try.axlewp.com/axle-category-tag-trash opens a private WordPress in your browser with this release and some demo content.

Compatibility

Checked by the end-to-end tests on every change. Unit tests run on PHP 7.4 to 8.4.
WordPress	PHP	Status
WordPress 7.1	PHP 8.3	Tested
WordPress 6.9	PHP 8.3	Tested
WordPress 6.6	PHP 7.4	Tested

Questions

What happens if a new term uses the old slug?

The restored term gets a unique slug instead, and Category & Tag Trash tells you which one.

What if a post was deleted while the term was in the trash?

It is skipped. Everything else is restored.

What if I changed a post’s categories in the meantime?

Only posts that still have exactly the default category plus the restored term lose the default category. Posts you changed by hand are left alone, and so are child terms you moved somewhere else.

How long are terms kept?

30 days by default, then a daily task deletes them for good. Choose 7, 30, 90 or 365 days on the Category & Tag Trash screen, or use the category_tag_trash_retention_days filter.

Can I leave a taxonomy out?

Use the category_tag_trash_supports_taxonomy filter. Menus are never kept, because deleting a menu removes its items first.

Does it work for a tag on thousands of posts?

Yes. The posts are saved in small chunks, so the trash stays light. A restore brings back the first 5,000 posts right away and the rest in the background, and wp category-tag-trash restore <id> does it all in one go. Search plugins like ElasticPress are told about every post that gets its term back.

For developers

Every default, limit and message has a filter, and every change fires an action. The full reference, with constants, abilities and WP-CLI, is in REFERENCE.md.

axle_category_tag_trash_supports_taxonomyFilter: Return false to delete a taxonomy’s terms for good, as WordPress normally does. Menus (nav_menu) are never kept ( bool $keep, string $taxonomy )
axle_category_tag_trash_keep_termFilter: Whether one deleted term goes to the trash, for example to let empty tags go for good ( bool $keep, WP_Term $term )
axle_category_tag_trash_retention_daysFilter: Days a trashed term is kept. Wins over the setting on the screen ( int $days )
axle_category_tag_trash_retention_choicesFilter: Periods offered on the screen. Default 7, 30, 90 and 365 ( int[] $days )
axle_category_tag_trash_undo_secondsFilter: How long the Undo notice after a bulk delete stays. Default 300 ( int $seconds )
axle_category_tag_trash_trashedAction: A deleted term landed in the trash ( int $item_id, Snapshot $snapshot )
axle_category_tag_trash_deletedAction: A trashed term is about to be deleted for good: Empty trash, Delete permanently or the daily clean-up. Not on restore ( int $item_id, Snapshot $snapshot )
axle_category_tag_trash_purgedAction: The daily clean-up deleted this many expired terms ( int $deleted )
axle_category_tag_trash_restoredAction: Fires once the term is back. $object_ids holds the objects re-attached in that request, at most 5,000 ( int $term_id, string $taxonomy, Snapshot $snapshot, int[] $object_ids )
axle_category_tag_trash_objects_restoredAction: Fires for every batch of objects re-attached, in the request and in the background ( int $term_id, string $taxonomy, int[] $object_ids )
axle_category_tag_trash_restore_completeAction: Fires once every object is back ( int $term_id, string $taxonomy, Snapshot $snapshot )
axle_category_tag_trash_restore_batch_sizeFilter: Objects re-attached per request or cron run. Default 5000 ( int $size )
axle_category_tag_trash_capabilityFilter: Capability for Tools > Axle Category & Tag Trash. Default manage_categories. Each restore and delete still checks the term’s own taxonomy ( string $capability )

Changelog

3.0.0

Changed (breaking change): rename to Axle Category & Tag Trash for WordPress.org
Fix: clean the term cache once per object type

2.0.0

Changed (breaking change): rename to Axle Category & Tag Trash for WordPress.org

1.3.0

Fix: make the abilities visible to MCP agents
New: add abilities so AI agents can find, restore and delete trashed terms

Every release, with notes: GitHub releases.

Category & Tag Trash

Use it when