Blender's Outliner and Collections: A Few Quick Tips

In Blender's Outliner we have the ability to create groups, or Collections, to store and organize the objects in our scene. It's pretty intuitive to use, but here are a few tips and tricks that you might not have come across yet.

You already know that you can create new Collections by right-clicking in the Outliner. And you move items by dragging and dropping them where you want. But you can also press the M key to bring up the "Move to Collection" menu. Here you can create a new Collection, while at the same time moving any selected items to that Collection, all at once.

In addition, if you hover over the Outliner with your cursor, you can press the Plus or Minus keys on the NumPad to expand or collapse all of the Collections. And to isolate one Collection, while hiding the rest, you can press the Ctrl key and Left Mouse Click the Collection. Ctrl-clicking the Collection again unhides all of the others.

And here's a tip regarding Materials and the Outliner. If you've ever tried to get rid of a Material in Blender, you know that it's kind of a pain. You usually have to first ensure that no objects are using the material, and then close the Blender file and reopen it. An easier way is to go to the Display Mode menu at the top of the Outliner and change to Blender File. Here you can go to the Materials section, select a Material, and just press Delete.

So there are a few tips and tricks regarding Blender's Outliner and Collections. Hope that helps.

All the best!
Darrin Lile