Add/ Edit multiple items by category

Hello all!

Is there a way to utilize the add/edit multiple items feature by category? We've categorized our items but the categories are pretty useless if you cannot only select those in a certain category to edit. I've tried selecting all the items in a category and then hitting the item dropdown at the bottom of the category lists screen and then add/edit multiple items but this still brings up all items. I've also tried using the custom filter option, but there is also no way to search by category. The only way I've found is to sort by category in the add/edit multiple items list but again this is still showing me all items (which of course makes the program slow down heavily and makes scrolling painful), and the items are then not in order by name alphabetically so they're out of order. Ideally, I'd like to add/edit multiple items in one specific category and still have them in order. Is there a workflow I'm missing here?