How to change someone's role
Learn how to change a WordPress user's role so they have the right level of access for their job.
WordPress lets you control exactly what each person on your team can do by giving them a role: think of it as a job title that comes with a set of permissions. Changing a role takes less than a minute.
What you'll need
- Administrator access to your WordPress site
- The name or email of the user whose role you want to change
Understanding WordPress roles
Before you change anything, it helps to know what each role can do.
| Role | What they can do |
|---|---|
| Administrator | Everything: full site control |
| Editor | Create, edit, and publish any posts and pages, including other people's |
| Author | Create and publish their own posts only |
| Contributor | Write posts, but cannot publish. Someone else must approve |
| Subscriber | Log in and manage their own profile; cannot create content |
Each step outwards adds power the role before it does not have. That is why the safe choice is the least powerful role that still lets the person do their job.
Read this as text
WordPress has five built-in roles, and they are not five separate lists of permissions. They run in order of power, from Subscriber up to Administrator, and each one is a step up from the one before it. Subscriber is the smallest: a Subscriber can log in and update their own profile, but cannot create or edit any content.
A Contributor can write and edit their own draft posts but cannot publish. Their work goes into Pending Review for an Editor or Administrator to approve. An Author can write, edit, publish, and delete their own posts, but cannot edit other people’s content and cannot create or edit pages. An Editor can create, edit, publish, and delete any post or page, including content created by other users, but cannot change site settings, install plugins, or manage users. An Administrator can do everything: install and delete plugins, change the theme, manage all users, access all settings, and edit any content.
Because the roles run in order of power, picking one is mechanical: start at the least powerful and stop at the first role that covers what the person actually needs. Subscriber suits a member of a members-only section, Contributor a guest blogger or intern, Author a team member or contractor who writes blog posts, Editor a content manager or marketing team member, and Administrator only the primary business owner and the Chykalophia team.
These are the roles WordPress builds in. Some plugins add custom roles of their own alongside them: WooCommerce, for example, adds a Shop Manager role for store management.
Be careful with Administrator
Only give Administrator access to people who truly need it. Too many admins is a security risk. For everyday content work, Editor or Author is almost always the right choice.
Most clients give their content team Editor access. Authors or Contributors work well for guest writers. Subscribers are typically used for members-only or course sites.
How to change a user's role
Log in to WordPress. Go to your site's login URL and sign in with your administrator account. If you're not sure of your login URL, see How to find your WordPress login URL.
Go to Users. In the left sidebar, click Users, then click All Users. You'll see a list of everyone with an account on your site.
Open the user's profile. Find the person you want to update and click their username (or hover over the row and click Edit).
Find the Role setting. In the Name section of the profile page, just below the username, you'll see a Role dropdown menu.
Choose the new role. Click the dropdown and select the role you want this person to have.
Save the change. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Update User. The change is saved straight away.
You're done
The user's role is updated. If they're logged in right now, they may need to refresh the page to see the difference.
Changing multiple users at once
WordPress also lets you bulk-change roles without opening each profile.
Go to Users → All Users.
Check the boxes next to all the users you want to update.
Use the "Change role to…" dropdown at the top of the list. Select the new role.
Click Change. All selected users are updated at once.
Granting Chykalophia access
If we've asked you to give us access to your site, please add support@chykalophia.com as an Administrator, unless your project lead has given you a different address. You can do this through Users → Add User. Full steps are in Give us WordPress admin access.
Common questions
Can I change my own role?
Not by yourself. The Role dropdown doesn't appear on your own profile, and the bulk Change role to… tool won't move you to a role that can't manage other users. This prevents accidental lockouts. You'd need another Administrator to change it for you.
What happens to the content someone created if I downgrade their role?
Their existing content stays exactly as it is. The role change only affects what they can do going forward. If you downgrade an Editor to Author, they won't be able to edit other people's posts anymore, but their own published content is unaffected.
The Role dropdown isn't there, what's wrong?
There are two common reasons. First, WordPress hides the Role field when you're looking at your own profile (see above). Second, on a standard WordPress site only Administrators can change roles, so you may not be logged in as one. Log in with an admin account, open the other person's profile, and try again.
Can I create a custom role with specific permissions?
Not with WordPress out of the box: WordPress has no screen for creating roles, so custom roles need a plugin or custom code. If you need a role with unique permissions, let us know and we can recommend the right tool.
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