If you run a WooCommerce store with many product categories and subcategories, manually managing navigation menus can quickly become frustrating.

A smarter approach is to dynamically generate WooCommerce product subcategories directly inside your WordPress menu. This ensures that whenever you create a new product category, it automatically appears in your website navigation without manually editing menus.

However, many code snippets found online have one major problem:

They add subcategories to ALL menus, including footer menus and mobile menus.

In this guide, we will show you how to:

Automatically add WooCommerce product subcategories
Support unlimited nested subcategories
Restrict the functionality to ONLY your main menu
Prevent footer menu duplication
Use a reliable menu ID targeting method that works across most WordPress themes

Table of Contents

Why Use Dynamic WooCommerce Menu Categories?

Dynamic WooCommerce menus help you:

Save time managing navigation
Automatically display newly created categories
Improve product discoverability
Create scalable store navigation
Reduce menu maintenance for large stores

This is especially useful for websites selling:

Car engines and gearboxes
Electronics
Fashion products
Hardware products
FMCG products
Large inventory stores

The Problem With Most Existing Solutions

Many tutorials use:

$args->theme_location

or:

$menu->name

to detect the main menu.

Unfortunately, many WordPress themes:

Use custom menu rendering methods
Ignore standard menu locations
Rename menu locations dynamically
Break menu detection logic

As a result:

Subcategories appear in footer menus
Mobile menus become duplicated
Navigation structures become messy

The most reliable solution is to target the actual WordPress menu ID.

Step 1 — Find Your Main Menu ID

Add this temporary code to your site:

</p>
add_filter( 'wp_get_nav_menu_items', function( $items, $menu ) {

echo '<pre>';
print_r( $menu );
echo '</pre>';

return $items;

}, 10, 2 );
<p data-start="2358" data-end="2395">

Now visit your website frontend.

You will see something similar to:

</p>
<p data-start="2613" data-end="2647">WP_Term Object
(
[term_id] => 17
[name] => Main Menu
)</p>
<p data-start="2613" data-end="2647">

Take note of the:

</div>
<div>term_id</div>
<div class="sticky bg-token-border-light">

In this example:

is the menu ID.

Remove the temporary debugging code after obtaining the ID.

Step 2 — Add the Dynamic WooCommerce Menu Code

Replace:

</div>
<div>17</div>
<div class="sticky bg-token-border-light">

with your actual menu ID.

</div>
<div>

add_filter( 'wp_get_nav_menu_items', 'wpcb_add_product_subcats_to_menu', 10, 3 );

function wpcb_add_product_subcats_to_menu( $items, $menu, $args ) {

// ONLY target your main menu ID
if ( 17 != $menu->term_id ) {
return $items;
}

if ( is_admin() ) {
return $items;
}

$children_order = count( $items ) + 1;

foreach ( $items as $item ) {
$items = wpcb_process_menu_item( $item, $items, $children_order );
}

return $items;
}

function wpcb_process_menu_item( $item, $items, &$children_order ) {

if ( 'product_cat' !== $item->object ) {
return $items;
}

$children = get_terms( array(
'taxonomy' => 'product_cat',
'hide_empty' => false,
'parent' => $item->object_id,
'number' => 0,
'orderby' => 'name',
'order' => 'ASC',
) );

if ( empty( $children ) || is_wp_error( $children ) ) {
return $items;
}

foreach ( $children as $child ) {

$tmp_item = new stdClass();

$tmp_item->ID = 100000 + $children_order;
$tmp_item->db_id = $tmp_item->ID;
$tmp_item->menu_item_parent = $item->ID;
$tmp_item->object_id = $child->term_id;
$tmp_item->object = 'product_cat';
$tmp_item->type = 'taxonomy';
$tmp_item->type_label = 'Product Category';
$tmp_item->title = $child->name;
$tmp_item->url = get_term_link( $child );
$tmp_item->target = '';
$tmp_item->attr_title = '';
$tmp_item->description = '';
$tmp_item->classes = array(
'menu-item',
'menu-item-product-cat',
);
$tmp_item->xfn = '';
$tmp_item->status = 'publish';
$tmp_item->menu_order = $children_order;

$items[] = $tmp_item;

$children_order++;

// Recursive subcategories
$items = wpcb_process_menu_item( $tmp_item, $items, $children_order );
}

return $items;
}

</div>
<div class="sticky bg-token-border-light">

Where to Add the Code

You can add the snippet using:

Your child theme functions.php
Or preferably a snippets plugin like:

WPCode plugin

Using a snippets plugin is safer because your code will not disappear during theme updates.

Final Result

Once implemented:

Product subcategories automatically appear in your main menu
Footer menus remain unaffected
Unlimited subcategory levels are supported
Navigation updates automatically when new categories are created

This creates a scalable WooCommerce navigation system ideal for large eCommerce stores.

add_filter( 'wp_get_nav_menu_items', 'wpcb_add_product_subcats_to_menu' );

if ( ! function_exists( 'wpcb_add_product_subcats_to_menu' ) ) {
/**
* wpcb_add_product_subcats_to_menu.
*
* @see https://wpcodebook.com/snippets/automatically-add-woocommerce-product-subcategories-to-categories-in-menu/
*/
function wpcb_add_product_subcats_to_menu( $items ) {
if ( is_admin() ) {
return $items;
}
$children_order = count( $items ) + 1;
foreach ( $items as $item ) {
$items = wpcb_process_menu_item( $item, $items, $children_order );
}
return $items;
}
}

if ( ! function_exists( 'wpcb_process_menu_item' ) ) {
/**
* wpcb_process_menu_item.
*/
function wpcb_process_menu_item( $item, $items, &$children_order ) {
if ( 'product_cat' === $item->object ) {

$children = get_terms( array(
'taxonomy' => 'product_cat',
'hide_empty' => false,
'parent' => $item->object_id,
'limit' => -1,
'orderby' => 'title',
'order' => 'ASC',
) );

if ( ! empty( $children ) && ! is_wp_error( $children ) ) {
foreach ( $children as $child ) {

$tmp_item = new stdClass();

$tmp_item->ID = 100000 + $children_order;
$tmp_item->post_author = $item->post_author;
$tmp_item->post_date = '';
$tmp_item->post_date_gmt = '';
$tmp_item->post_content = '';
$tmp_item->post_title = '';
$tmp_item->post_excerpt = '';
$tmp_item->post_status = 'publish';
$tmp_item->comment_status = '';
$tmp_item->ping_status = '';
$tmp_item->post_password = '';
$tmp_item->post_name = $child->name;
$tmp_item->to_ping = '';
$tmp_item->pinged = '';
$tmp_item->post_modified = '';
$tmp_item->post_modified_gmt = '';
$tmp_item->post_content_filtered = '';
$tmp_item->post_parent = 0;
$tmp_item->guid = '';
$tmp_item->menu_order = $children_order;
$tmp_item->post_type = 'nav_menu_item';
$tmp_item->post_mime_type = '';
$tmp_item->comment_count = '';
$tmp_item->filter = 'raw';
$tmp_item->db_id = $tmp_item->ID;
$tmp_item->menu_item_parent = $item->ID;
$tmp_item->object_id = $child->term_id;
$tmp_item->object = 'product_cat';
$tmp_item->type = 'taxonomy';
$tmp_item->type_label = '';
$tmp_item->url = get_term_link( $child->term_id );
$tmp_item->title = $child->name;
$tmp_item->target = '';
$tmp_item->attr_title = '';
$tmp_item->description = '';
$tmp_item->classes = array( 0 => '' );
$tmp_item->xfn = '';