Category Posts in Custom Menu
Dynamic menus: List all posts from a category in your menu. Also works for tags, custom taxonomies as well as pages and custom post types.
Solid choice
Category Posts in Custom Menu is a solid plugin choice in 2026, with a few things worth checking first. It runs on 2K+ sites, is rated 4.8/5 and was last updated 4 weeks ago, and scores 76/100 on our health check.
- Loved by users — 4.8/5 from 43 reviews
- Actively developed — last update 4 weeks ago
- Tested with the latest WordPress (7.1)
- Momentum — downloads up 405.4% vs the previous 30 days
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 Posts in Custom Me… stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| automatic | #94 |
| category | #19 |
| Dynamic | >100 |
| menu | #52 |
| submenu | #7 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 from 43 reviews
About Category Posts in Custom Menu
From the official readme · v3.0.7Description
The default custom menu in WordPress only allows adding a link that leads to a list of posts and pages belonging to a taxonomy (category, tag, etc). If you want to list the posts and pages themselves and if you want WordPress to do this automatically for you, then I hope you will find this plugin useful.
Also works for custom taxonomies and custom post types
NEW: CPCM V3 now provides support for Full Site Editing with the Gutenberg Block Editor
WARNING: Coming from version 1.x? There are breaking changes, read the changelog before upgrading.
Using it
Enable the plugin and go to either Appearance > Menus or Appearance > Customize or Appearance > Editor. Add a category (or other taxonomy like tag or custom) to the menu. Next, you can choose if you would like to replace the category by the posts or pages themselves.
For each Category in your menu, you now have the following extra configuration options:
- Replace by posts in the category y/n;
- specify the (maximum) number of posts you want to show for this item (max 10);
- their ordering ascending or descending by Title, Date or Menu Order;
- specify the title for the menu items. For this you can use %post_title, %post_author and other wildcards, see ‘Other Notes > Wildcards’. Default value: %post_title
Wildcards
You can control the title of the menu items generated by the plug-in with the following wildcards:
- %post_title
- %post_author
- %post_date for the unformatted post date: 2012-11-10 18:14:23
- %post_date() for a formatted post date with the following default formatting: November 10th, 2012
- %post_date(<your formatting here>) for custom date formatting. Example: %post_date(l jS \of F Y, h:i:s A). See https://codex.wordpress.org/Formatting_Date_and_Time for formatting options.
- %post_date_gmt
- %post_date_gmt()
- %post_date_gmt(<your formatting here>)
Installation
- Go to plugins in your dashboard and select “Add New”
- Search for “CPCM” or “Category Posts in Custom Menu”
- Install and Activate the plugin
Frequently asked questions
How do I use it?
Here’s a walkthrough: Create a post with title “Post 1” and add a _new_ category “Category A” Save the post Go to Appearances > Menus (or via Appearance > Customize or Appearance > Editor, in WordPress 5.4 or higher) Add your category named “Category A” Open the menu item and check “Create submenu containing posts in this category.” Save the menu If you now look at your website, “Category A” is replaced by “Post 1”. Add additional posts to Category A and you will automatically see these additional posts in the menu.
Missing CSS classes
The CSS class ‘current-post-ancestor’ is not applied correctly. This is a bug in WordPress that I have reported here: https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/32918 This is not something I am able to fix in the plugin, it has to be fixed in WordPress. I’m sorry for the inconvenience.
Performance issues
The plugin is potentially very expensive, especially when you decide to build your entire menu out of nothing but category posts. The solution would be to cache the menu using transients, as reported here https://wordpress.org/support/topic/performance-problem-many-database-queries?replies=11#post-7829450 $my_cached_menu = get_transient( ‘my_cached_menu’); if( $my_cached_menu === false ) { $my_cached_menu = wp_nav_menu( … ); set_transient( “my_cached_menu_”, $my_cached_menu, YEAR_IN_SECONDS ); } echo $my_cached_menu;
Can’t see it working in any way
Problem: “I can’t see what effect it has had. Nothing has changed (not that I can see) in the Appearance > Menu/Customize/Editor pages. It’s just like before.” If you are using a recent version of category Posts in Custom Menu and an updated version of WordPress, the problem can only occur due to your theme or other plugins conflicting with Category Posts in Custom Menu. Please disable all themes and plugins except CPCM; verify that the CPCM fields show; enable other plugins and themes one by one to determine which plugin/theme conflicts with CPCM. Note: A theme must either call wp_nav_menu()…
Changelog
Now provides support for Full Site Editing with the Gutenberg Block Editor. Dropped support for Wordpress 4.x, plugin now requires WordPress 5.4 or higher. Verified compatibility with WordPress 6.5
3.0.7
Verified compatibility with WordPress 7.1
3.0.6
Verified compatibility with WordPress 7.0
3.0.5
Verified compatibility with WordPress 6.9
3.0.4
Verified compatibility with WordPress 6.8
3.0.3
Verified compatibility with WordPress 6.7
3.0.2
Verified compatibility with WordPress 6.6
Screenshots
For developers
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FAQ
Category Posts in Custom Menu: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Sep 26, 2026
Is Category Posts in Custom Menu free?
Yes. Category Posts in Custom Menu is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Category Posts in Custom Menu safe to use in 2026?
Category Posts in Custom Menu is a solid plugin choice in 2026, with a few things worth checking first. It runs on 2K+ sites, is rated 4.8/5 and was last updated 4 weeks ago, and scores 76/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Category Posts in Custom Menu?
Category Posts in Custom Menu is active on 2K+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 109,929 times since it launched in November 2011. It was downloaded 1,981 times in the last 30 days.
Does Category Posts in Custom Menu work with WordPress 7.1?
Yes. The developer has tested Category Posts in Custom Menu up to WordPress 7.1.2, the latest release. It requires WordPress 5.4 or newer.
What PHP version does Category Posts in Custom Menu need?
Category Posts in Custom Menu requires PHP 7.4 or higher. Most hosts run PHP 8.x today, so it works on any modern WordPress hosting.
When was Category Posts in Custom Menu last updated?
The latest version, 3.0.7, was released on August 28, 2026 (4 weeks ago).
Who makes Category Posts in Custom Menu?
Category Posts in Custom Menu is developed and maintained by Diana van de Laarschot.
What are the best alternatives to Category Posts in Custom Menu?
The most popular alternatives to Category Posts in Custom Menu are Autologin Links (7K+ installs), Easy Custom Auto Excerpt (6K+ installs) and OTF Regenerate Thumbnails (4K+ installs).
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