Reorder category tree in Magento

Sometimes you need to reorganize your category tree in Magento. For example, if you’ve got 10,000 categories and over twice as many products, then every time you move a category, you need to wait for ages. Don’t you?

Why moving categories takes so much time in Magento? That’s because each time it has to re-index your data. In order not to wait for Magento to end the process (every time you drag and drop a category), there is a really simple trick. Let me show you how to move categories quicker in Magento:

1. Navigate to System → Index Management

2. Select ‘Category URL Rewrites‘ checkbox.

3. From Action drop- down list select ‘Change Index Mode‘ and set Index mode to ‘Manually Update‘ .

4. Click on ‘Submit‘ button.

So, when you need to reorganize your categories in, you can do it this way:

5. Head to Catalog → Manage Categories and reorder you category tree as you like.

6. Go back to Index Management and re-index ‘Catalog URL Rewrites’.

This time you will need to wait for Magento to complete the task. Just be patient.

7. Set re-index mode back to ‘Update on Save‘ and you are done.

Congratulation! You’ve saved yourself a lot of time.