Add Descendants As Submenu Items

How well this listing is tuned to rank in WordPress.org search, on the factors an owner controls. Not popularity, optimization.

Directory rank vs rivals

wp.org popularity rank over time · higher is better · when a rival's line climbs above yours, they've overtaken you

How often this plugin actually ships. A steady rhythm is the maintenance signal a single "last updated" date can't show.

Share of active installs on each version of this plugin · 100% run the current release. Green is the current release; a big slice on older versions is a user base that has stopped updating.

Refined from the date this plugin crossed into its current band.

No paid tier is visible, so we don't put a figure on revenue or sale value: that would be guessing. The install base is a real asset to an acquirer, just not one public data lets us price. A small install base leaves thin data to model from.

Reviewers say it saves hours of manual menu building on large sites, and several report it still working on newer WordPress versions, though a couple note it doesn't cover product categories and want it kept updated.

1. ★★★★★ Dominik

   3.6y ago

   Amazing product to add all child categories to the menu (subcategories). It works in the fly!

   Read on wp.org ↗
2. ★★★★★ carlosvai

   3.9y ago

   I really can’t believe WP doesn’t have a function like this built in. This plug in is amazing! I have a lot of categories in my menus, and we all know just how awful and difficult it is to add an item manually. This plug in saved me a LOT of time and I can’t be grateful enough. One caveat to all who try it, if you are creating new categories, make sure you have at least one post or page linked to it or else it won’t appear. And another thing, the items will appear in the frontend menu, not in the menu admin page. So be aware of that and test simply hitting F5 in the home page. Also amazing support, I had problems figuring out the issues I detailed above, and they were extremely helpful via the support board, so kudos to that too. Thanks again for this lifesaver plug in!

   Read on wp.org ↗
3. ★★★★★ flyingkites

   7.5y ago

   Still works with WordPress 5.1 for Pages in menu. You need to add the Parent to the menu then save. Then edit again to see the checkbox to check the new flag. I was wanting to use it for WordPress Product Categories but it does not work for them (probably never did?). Only the parent shows for me. Be good if it did.

   Read on wp.org ↗
4. ★★★★★ mlipenk

   8.3y ago

   I have a very large site with over a thousand pages. There are many pages in sections and subsections, sometimes to four levels, used in conjunction with main sections. To get what I need for a menu, sometimes I have to use Custom Menu Wizard. But in doing so, I have to create some very large, tiered, non-auto menus manually… sometimes in the hundreds of pages. If a user adds a page or re-orders a page, I’d have to go back into the menu used by Custom Menu Wizard and add/edit accordingly to reflect those changes. With this plugin and a simple checkbox I’ve cut the number of actual necessary menu items to a fraction of before, AND the user can make changes as they please. What a great plug in! It should be part of the default WordPress Appearance menu creator. This topic was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by mlipenk.

   Read on wp.org ↗
5. ★★★★★ fabsmoss

   8.5y ago

   Estou usando a versão 4.9.4 do WordPress e funciona perfeito.

   Read on wp.org ↗
6. ★★★★★ Michael Dance

   10.2y ago

   Still works great. Much better than Gecka Submenu – it doesn’t break the layout on the menu screen and there’s no unnecessary pro version upsell. I hope this is updated at some point because its age is hiding it from WP’s search results.

   Read on wp.org ↗
7. ★★★★★ lbrowning

   10.8y ago

   This is such a time-saver. I am using this in conjunction with many nested Woocommerce product categories. The root categories don’t change on the main menu, but it’s possible the children will… so now the customer can change those until their fingers bleed and it just works! Thank you 🙂

   Read on wp.org ↗
8. ★★★★★ ShaOne

   11.0y ago

   Why is this not included in WP Core?! Bafflement Sean

   Read on wp.org ↗

Recent releases and news for this plugin

1. — Version 1.2.2 Fix fatal error in customizer when using taxonomies in menus. Add POT file for translations. 1.2.2
2. — Version 1.2.1 Minor update allowing for loading translation files from WordPress.org. 1.2.1
3. — Version 1.2.0 _get_post_ancestors() will/was deprecated in WordPress 3.5 and no longer works. Parts of this plugin have been rewritten to more properly get post ancestors. Bug fix: Don’t highlight parents of different types. Post type 1.2.0
4. — Version 1.1.0 Support for hierarchical taxonomies (i.e. categories). Props WPAddiction for the idea. Translatable plugin headers. 1.1.0
5. — Version 1.0.1 Fix sorting by secondarily sorting by title. 1.0.1
6. — Version 1.0.0 Initial release! 1.0.0

Automated install-time checks, tested on PHP 7.4.8 · WP 6.0.2

Growth timeline

Install-tier crossings we have observed, and how long each tier took to outgrow

1. 2025-04-27 3K+ → 2K+ down after 1 days in tier
2. 2025-04-26 2K+ → 3K+ up after 2 days in tier
3. 2025-04-24 3K+ → 2K+ down

Competes with

The plugins that solve the same job, ranked by shared tags then reach, closest match first. The letter on the right is each plugin's health grade (A best, F worst).

• Menu Image, Icons made easy 100K+ installs · 4.5★ · 2 shared tags B
• User Menus – Nav Menu Visibility 80K+ installs · 4.9★ · 2 shared tags A
• Nav Menu Roles 70K+ installs · 4.9★ · 2 shared tags A
• N Nav Menu Images 6K+ installs · 4.1★ · 2 shared tags D
• LuckyWP ACF Menu Field 5K+ installs · 4.6★ · 2 shared tags B
• Privilege Menu 1K+ installs · 4.3★ · 2 shared tags D

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Add Descendants As Submenu Items: 2K+ active installs, 5.0★ (20 reviews). Plugin Pulse (WP Mayor), as of 2026-08-29. https://plugins.wpmayor.com/plugin/add-descendants-as-submenu-items