Articles still active after deactivating old categories

[emiltalley]

Hi everyone,
We created new categories in our Knowledge Base and moved articles into them. After that, we deactivated the old categories.

But the articles that were in those old categories did not deactivate — they’re still active/published. This ended up doubling our total article count because the old versions are still being counted along with the new ones.

Is this expected behavior? And what’s the best way to clean this up so only the correct articles remain active?

Thanks!

[pavani_paluri]

Hi @emiltalley ,

Yes, this is expected behavior. Deactivating a Knowledge Category does not automatically retire or deactivate the Knowledge Articles that were assigned to that category. Categories and articles are managed independently.

If your article count has doubled, I would first verify whether duplicate article records were created or whether you're seeing multiple versions of the same article. Check the article numbers, sys_ids, and workflow states to confirm.

For cleanup, identify the obsolete articles and retire them (or update their state) so that only the intended articles remain published. Also review any reports or dashboards to ensure they are counting only active/published articles and, if applicable, only the latest version of each article.

Mark it helpful if this helps you to understand. Accept solution if this give you the answer you're looking for

Kind Regards,

Pavani P