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Category Tree (Basic Guide)
Your category tree is the foundation of your content structure in Bamboo. It determines how videos are organized, how viewers browse your website and apps, and what appears on your homepage.
This guide explains the basic concepts behind categories and how to build a clean, easy-to-manage category tree. If you need a more advanced structure, see Category Tree — Advanced Guide.
Table of Contents
- Understanding the Category Tree
- Creating & Organizing Categories
- Assigning Videos to Categories
- Editing & Deleting Categories
- Need Something More Advanced?
- Tutorial Videos
- Related Articles
Understanding the Category Tree
A category tree is the structure used to organize your content.
Each category represents a section of your content library, such as:
- Movies
- Tutorials
- Kids
- Workouts
- Classes
- Sermons
Bamboo displays your content based on this structure. Your category tree determines:
- How content is organized.
- What appears on your homepage.
- How viewers browse your website and apps.
- How series, courses, and topics are grouped.
A simple, well-organized category tree is usually easier to manage and provides a better viewing experience.
Video Visibility: Important Rule
A video must belong to at least one category to become part of your content structure.
If a video is not assigned to any category:
- It will not appear on your homepage.
- It will not appear inside category pages.
- It will not appear when browsing your apps.
- If the video is public, it may still appear in search results.
Bamboo Tip: Categories determine where videos appear. Assigning videos to the correct categories is one of the most important steps when setting up your website or apps.
Creating & Organizing Categories
Creating Categories
You can create categories in several ways:
- From the Categories page by clicking Add Category.
- From the Category Tree by creating a new Root category.
- From the Category Tree by adding a Subcategory.
- From the Videos page while assigning categories to content.
The quick creation options only require a category name.
You can always configure the remaining settings later from the Category Editor.
Organizing Categories
Categories can be reordered by dragging and dropping them within the Category Tree.
To change a category's position in the hierarchy without dragging it, you can:
- Use the Move action from the category menu.
- Change the Parent Category from the Category Editor.
Drag and drop is the main way to control the order of categories. The Move action and Parent Category are mainly used to change where a category sits in the tree. Moving a category may affect where it appears, but it does not give you the same direct control over ordering as drag and drop.
The order and hierarchy of your categories determine how content is organized and displayed throughout your website and apps, including homepage layouts and category-based navigation.
Bamboo Tip: Place your most important categories near the top of the tree so they appear first to viewers.
Adding Subcategories
Subcategories help divide larger content libraries into smaller, easier-to-browse sections.
Examples:
- Movies → Action, Comedy, Kids
- Courses → Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
- Workouts → Yoga, Strength, HIIT
For smaller libraries, a simple one-level structure is often easier to maintain.
Learn more: If you're unsure how many levels to use, see Category Tree — Advanced Guide.
Assigning Videos to Categories
Once your categories are ready, assign your videos to the appropriate categories.
A video can belong to one category or multiple categories.
For example, a single movie could appear in:
- Featured
- New Releases
- Movies
This allows you to reuse content in multiple places without creating duplicate videos.
Videos can be assigned individually from the Video Editor or in bulk from the Videos page.
Bamboo Tip: Videos assigned only to a parent category may not appear where you expect if your content is organized into subcategories.
Editing & Deleting Categories
Categories can be updated at any time.
From the Category Editor, you can configure:
- Category Details
- Display Settings
- Images
- Privacy
- Subscriptions
- View Type
- Sorting
Learn more: See Create & Edit Categories for a complete explanation of every available setting.
Deleting a category removes the category from your category tree but does not delete the videos assigned to it.
Before deleting a category, make sure it is not being used by your homepage or navigation.
Need Something More Advanced?
The Category Tree — Advanced Guide explains how to build more complex content structures, including:
- Multi-level category trees
- Series, seasons, and episodes
- Complex homepage layouts
- Large video libraries
- Root categories controlling multiple sections
- Best practices for advanced organization
Tutorial Videos
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Category trees- The logic