Category Management
Categories in Vortex are a useful way to organise your mods. While the category information can be automatically populated when installing mods downloaded from Nexus Mods, there are a number of other things categories can be used for.
Contents
Importing categories from Nexus Mods
To get started, you may want to import the list of categories provided by Nexus Mods for your managed game. To find your list of categories, click the "Categories" button on the toolbar in the Mods section.
Along the toolbar in the Categories window, press the "Retrieve categories" button. Doing this will reset any changes you've manually made to the category listings. If that's ok click "Retrieve". You should now have a list of categories as they appear on the site (Click here for an example).
It is possible that Vortex may have already imported the categories when you first managed the game.
Hint: Use the +/- symbols on the left to expand or contract categories.
Categories from Nexus Mod Manager
If you have used the "Import from Nexus Mod Manager" option to migrate your mods into Vortex, your categories will be preserved from there. You can view these by pressing the "Categories" button as shown above.
Adding and Removing Categories
There are two way to add categories in Vortex depending on if it's a root category (top level) or a child category nested inside an existing one.
Add a new root category
Using the toolbar button, you can add a new root category. This means the category will be on the "top level" where the name of the game is.
Add a new child category
The button on the right side of the existing categories has a drop-down menu where you can add a child category. This will add the new category inside the one you have selected.
In both cases you'll be asked for a 'Category ID - you are best to leave this as Vortex fills it, to avoid clashing with an already existing category.
Adding Mods to a category
You can either add mods to a category one at a time, or in batch.
- Double-click one of the mods you want to change the category for, this should open the details pane on the right side of Vortex.
- (Optional) Hold Ctrl and click each additional mod you want to categorise.
- Locate the Category drop-down menu in the details pane and select the category you wish to put your mod(s) in.
Changes are saved automatically, and the category shown in the mods table should update almost immediately.
Category Display Options
By default, categories are displayed with any parents included (e.g. Fallout 4 > Sim Settlements > Sim Settlements: City Plans). You can hide the parent categories under Settings > Interface > Customisation > Hide Top-Level Category. This will make the above example show simply as "Sim Settlements: City Plans" inside Vortex.
