Category Expander
Allows WordPress Admins to show only a selected few categories on the sidebar and hide the rest from view until visitor clicks "See All".
Consider an alternative
Category Expander shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites and was last updated 14 years ago, and scores 31/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (10+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 14 years
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Category Expander stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| categories | >100 |
| sidebar | >100 |
| widget | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
About Category Expander
From the official readme · v0.9.1Description
Do you have a lot of categories and are sick of having a huge list in your sidebar? Want to highlight only a few of them to make your site easier to navigate?
While redesigning WordPress sites for our clients we kept running into this problem over and over. They had a huge list of legacy categories but only wanted to highlight a few of them. We wrote this plugin to allow them to select which categories to show and which categories to initially hide.
All categories are still accessible by a “see all” link at the bottom of the list.
Add the widget to your sidebar to make it live.
Installation
Upload the Category Expander plugin to your blog, Activate it, update your settings and add the widget to your sidebar.
For developers
Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.
Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.
Best Category Expander alternatives
All categories plugins →
FAQ
Category Expander: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 16, 2026
Is Category Expander free?
Yes. Category Expander is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Category Expander safe to use in 2026?
Category Expander shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites and was last updated 14 years ago, and scores 31/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Category Expander?
Category Expander is active on 10+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 4,524 times since it launched in January 2010. It was downloaded 54 times in the last 30 days.
When was Category Expander last updated?
The latest version, 0.9.1, was released on September 18, 2012 (14 years ago).
Who makes Category Expander?
Category Expander is developed and maintained by timgrahl.
What are the best alternatives to Category Expander?
The most popular alternatives to Category Expander are List category posts (80K+ installs), Media Library Assistant (70K+ installs) and PublishPress Taxonomies (40K+ installs).
Powered by PageForge
Want thousands of pages that rank like these? Build them in an afternoon.
This directory runs on the same engine as PageForge. Turn any spreadsheet, CSV or API into thousands of fast, SEO-ready WordPress pages — with schema, internal links and AI-written copy baked in.
- CSV, Google Sheets & API data sources
- AI content, schema & internal links per page
- Works with Elementor, Gutenberg, Yoast & Rank Math
- Free on WordPress.org — no credit card
