How do I remove a taxonomy from WordPress?

7 comments

1. I suggest you don’t mess with the actual global. Its safer to simply deregister the taxonomy from the post type: register_taxonomy is used for both creation and modification.

   function ev_unregister_taxonomy(){
       register_taxonomy('post_tag', array());
   }
   add_action('init', 'ev_unregister_taxonomy');
   

   To remove the sidebar menu entry:

   // Remove menu
   function remove_menus(){
       remove_menu_page('edit-tags.php?taxonomy=post_tag'); // Post tags
   }
   
   add_action( 'admin_menu', 'remove_menus' );
   

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2. Perhaps a more technically correct method would be to use unregister_taxonomy_for_object_type

   add_action( 'init', 'unregister_tags' );
   
   function unregister_tags() {
       unregister_taxonomy_for_object_type( 'post_tag', 'post' );
   }
   

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3. Where it says ‘taxonomy_to_remove‘ is where you’ll enter the taxonomy you want to remove. For instance you can replace it with the existing, post_tag or category.

   add_action( 'init', 'unregister_taxonomy');
   function unregister_taxonomy(){
       global $wp_taxonomies;
       $taxonomy = 'taxonomy_to_remove';
       if ( taxonomy_exists( $taxonomy))
           unset( $wp_taxonomies[$taxonomy]);
   }
   

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4. Total unregister and remove (minimal PHP version 5.4!)

   add_action('init', function(){
           global $wp_taxonomies;
           unregister_taxonomy_for_object_type( 'category', 'post' );
           unregister_taxonomy_for_object_type( 'post_tag', 'post' );
           if ( taxonomy_exists( 'category'))
               unset( $wp_taxonomies['category']);
           if ( taxonomy_exists( 'post_tag'))
               unset( $wp_taxonomies['post_tag']);
           unregister_taxonomy('category');
           unregister_taxonomy('post_tag');
       });
   

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5. There is new function to remove taxonomy from WordPress.

   Use unregister_taxonomy( string $taxonomy ) function

   See details: https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/unregister_taxonomy/

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6. Use it in ‘admin_init’ hook insetead not ‘init’

   function unregister_taxonomy(){
       register_taxonomy('post_tag', array());
   }
   add_action('admin_init', 'unregister_taxonomy');
   

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7. add_action('admin_menu', 'remove_menu_items');
function remove_menu_items() {
remove_submenu_page('edit.php','edit-tags.php?taxonomy=post_tag');
}

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