Key Concepts > E-Commerce > Deleting Items from Magento

There are several methods to remove products from your Magento website. This section will explain a few of the options available. Use caution when using any of the following options and always remember to backup your website files and MySQL database before making any changes.

Delete Products & Categories Using Magmi Importer

What is Magmi Importer?

As previously mentioned in the Manually Upload Web Store Inventory section of this document, the Magmi Mass Importer, which is installed into the Magmi folder in root directory of your website, is an open-source database client that the PCLink desktop application connects to when uploading your inventory items and images.

Magmi Configuration Page (Use as your own risk. We do not provide support for these options.)

The configuration settings in Magmi should never be changed unless you know what you’re doing. The configuration page can be found here:

www.[yourmagentowebsite.com]/magmi/web/magmi.php

Magmi Advanced Utilities (Use as your own risk. We do not provide support for these options.)

Magmi has some Advanced Utilities that can be found here:

www.[yourmagentowebsite.com]/magmi/web/magmi_utilities.php

This document will only focus on the applicable options to remove product information from your website:

1.	Clear Catalog... This Utility removes the products from your Magento website and has no configurable options

2.	Custom Magento SQL Utility... This Utility enables you to perform custom parameterized SQL scripts on the Magento database by selecting an option from the SQL file drop list

1)	Remove Categories – This script will remove all categories from your Magento website

FYI… The Clear Images option will remove any reference to product images in the MySQL database. It does not remove the actual image file from your website. Product images are not stored in the MySQL database; they are uploaded via FTP to your website. Product image removal options are listed later in this document.

Delete Products and Categories Using Magento

Remove Products (Use as your own risk. We do not provide support for these options.)

1.	Login to the Magento Admin page

2.	Click on the Catalog pull-down menu at the top and choose Manage Products

3.	Click the Select All link, select Delete from the Actions options and click Submit

Remove Categories (Use as your own risk. We do not provide support for these options.)

1.	Create a New Root Category called Trash, drag all unwanted categories into the Trash category, then delete the Trash category

1)	Login to the Magento Admin page

2)	Click on the Catalog pull-down menu at the top and choose Manage Categories

3)	In the Name field under General Information type “Trash”

4)	In the Is Active field under General Information select No

5)	Click the Save Category button

6)	Drag and drop all unwanted categories into the Trash category

7)	Click on the Trash category to make sure it is selected and then click the Delete Category button