Deleting catalog items
Permanently remove products, variants, SKUs, categories, and metaobjects
You can permanently delete items from your catalog using the Delete modal. Before any deletion, Emfas shows you exactly what will be removed — including items that would be deleted as a cascade side-effect.
Deletion is permanent
Deleted items cannot be recovered. Emfas shows a preview of the full impact before you confirm, so review it carefully.
How to delete items
- Select the items you want to delete by clicking their checkboxes.
- Click the ··· (More actions) menu in the action bar that appears at the bottom of the screen.
- Choose Delete….
- Review the deletion preview and confirm.
You can delete one item or many at once. The same flow works for products, variants, SKUs, categories, and metaobjects.
The deletion preview
Before anything is deleted, Emfas loads a preview showing the full scope of the operation.
Cascade impact
Some deletions remove more than what you selected:
- Deleting a product also removes all its variants and SKUs.
- Deleting a variant also removes all its SKUs.
- Deleting a category can also remove descendant categories (see Category options below).
The preview lists each type of item that will be removed and the total count, so you know the full impact upfront.
Category options
When deleting categories that have descendants, you choose what happens to those descendants:
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Delete descendants | Removes the selected categories and every category nested beneath them. |
| Promote children | Removes only the selected categories; their direct children are moved up to the parent level. |
The "Promote children" option only promotes direct children — it does not flatten the entire subtree. Grandchildren stay nested under the promoted children.
Typed confirmation for large deletes
When a delete would affect 100 or more items, or 1,000 or more items in total (including cascade), Emfas requires typed confirmation. You will see a prompt like:
Type delete 5 products to confirm:
Type the exact phrase shown and click Delete to proceed.
Items synced from an external source
Items that are actively synced from an integration (such as Shopify or Centra) cannot be deleted directly in Emfas. If any item in your selection is synced, the Delete modal explains this and gives you two options:
- Disconnect the source for those items, then delete them in Emfas.
- Delete them in the source system — once deleted there, they will sync out of Emfas automatically.
You can click View synced items to see the full list of blocked items and which source they come from.