How to Remove Out of Stock in WooCommerce

Managing an online store requires creating a hassle-free shopping experience for your customers. When out-of-stock products are displayed, it can cause disappointment, missed sales opportunities, and even harm your brand’s reputation.

By hiding or removing these items, you can keep your store well organized, make it easier for customers to browse, and direct their attention to products they can actually buy.

To remove out-of-stock products in WooCommerce, go to WooCommerce > Settings > Products > Inventory in your WordPress dashboard. Check the box for hide out-of-stock items from the catalog and save the changes. This simple tweak ensures that unavailable products no longer appear on your shop or category pages.

In this blog, we’ll cover 3 ways to remove out-of-stock products in Woocommerce,

• Hide out-of-stock products using built-in settings,
• Manually remove out-of-stock products,
• Remove out-of-stock products programmatically

Why remove out-of-stock products in WooCommerce?

Out-of-stock products can clutter your store, create unnecessary clicks for shoppers, and potentially harm your conversion rates. By removing or hiding these items, you can:

• Enhance User Experience: Prevent customers from encountering unavailable products.
• Streamline Store Navigation: Keep your product pages clean and relevant.
• Improve SEO and Analytics: Focus search engine crawlers on active products, improving indexation and analytics insights.

Now, let’s dive into the methods.

Method 1: Hide Out-of-Stock Products in WooCommerce Settings

The simplest way to remove out-of-stock items is through WooCommerce’s built-in settings. Your stocked-out products won’t be permanently deleted; they will be just hidden. And you can make them visible anytime when your stock is updated.

Steps to hide stock-out products in Woocommerce:

Step 1: Access WooCommerce Inventory Settings:

• Log in to your WordPress admin dashboard.
• Navigate to WooCommerce > Settings > Product > Inventory tab.

Step 2: Enable Stock Management

• Ensure the “Enable stock management” option is checked.
• Check the box of Enable out of stock notifications to get alerts when your products are stocked out from your Woocommerce store.

Step 3: Hide out of stock products in Woocommerce

• Scroll down to check the option “Hide out-of-stock items from the catalog.”
• Save the changes.

All the out-of-stock items will no longer appear on your shop pages, search results, or category listings.

Method 2: Manually Remove Out-of-Stock Products in Woocommerce

If you prefer to remove specific out-of-stock products from your Woocommerce, follow these steps:

Step 1: Go to Your Woocommerce Product List

• From the WordPress dashboard, navigate to Products > All Products.

Step 2: Filter Out-of-Stock Items:

• Go to the Filter by stock status and click on out-of-stock option.
• Then, hit on Filter.

Step 3: Delete stock-out Products

• Select the items you want to remove. To bulk remove all the stock-out products, check the first box to select altogether.
• In the bulk actions dropdown, select move to trash.
• Hit Apply to save the changes.

So, your stock-out products are removed from your Woocommerce store.

Method 3: Remove Out-of-Stock Products in WooCommerce Programmatically

If you prefer a hands-on approach or want more control over how out-of-stock products are managed, removing them programmatically is an excellent option. This method involves adding custom code to your WooCommerce store, which automatically hides or removes out-of-stock products from the shop and catalog pages.

Step-by-Step Guide to Remove Out-of-Stock Products Programmatically

Step 1: Access the Theme File Editor

• In your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Appearance > Theme File Editor.
• Open the functions.php file of your active theme.

Step 2: Add the Custom Code

• Copy and paste the following code snippet into the functions.php file:

// Remove out-of-stock products from WooCommerce shop and catalog

add_action('pre_get_posts', 'hide_out_of_stock_products');

function hide_out_of_stock_products($query) {

    if (!is_admin() && $query->is_main_query() && (is_shop() || is_product_category() || is_product_tag())) {

        $meta_query = $query->get('meta_query');

        if (!is_array($meta_query)) {

            $meta_query = [];

        }

        $meta_query[] = [

            'key' => '_stock_status',

            'value' => 'outofstock',

            'compare' => '!='

        ];

        $query->set('meta_query', $meta_query);

    }

}

Step 3: Save the Changes

• After pasting the code, click Update File to save your changes.

Step 4: Test the Functionality

• Visit your shop or category pages to confirm that out-of-stock products are no longer visible.
• Update a product’s stock status to “Out of Stock” and refresh the page to ensure it is removed.

Additional Tips for Managing Woocommerce Out-of-Stock Inventory

• Enable Stock Synchronization: If you’re using third-party tools, ensure stock levels sync in real time.
• Use Conditional Logic: Implement rules for product visibility based on user roles or purchase history.
• Optimize Product Pages: Add custom messages or redirect users to similar products when stock is unavailable.

FAQs:

Conclusion

When you remove out-of-stock products in WooCommerce, it is essential for maintaining a user-friendly and efficient online store. Whether you choose built-in settings or custom code, each method has its own unique benefits. Evaluate your store’s needs and pick the solution that best suits your workflow. A clean, optimized store can lead to improved customer satisfaction and better sales performance.

Related Articles:

• All You Must Know About Woocommerce Stock Manager Plugins in 2025
• Best WooCommerce Stock Management Plugin for 2025