How to Hide Other Users’ Posts in WordPress
By default, WordPress users which access to the “Posts” screen can see all the Posts on the site, regardless of whether they are the author or can edit then.
This is not a problem for many sites. After all, most Posts on most sites are publicly available – there’s no need to hide them.
However, in some situations, site owners don’t want authors to see the Posts that other users are working on. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to solve this problem thanks to PublishPress plugins.
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Who Can See Other Users’ Posts
Normally, on a WordPress site, admin listing access is provided by the “Edit” capabilities. So if a user has the ability to edit a post, they will be able to view that post in the WordPress admin area.
The PublishPress Permissions plugin make it possible to use a separate “List” capability. However, this will only apply if the corresponding “Edit” capability is missing.
This screenshot is from the PublishPress Capabilities screen and shows the “Edit” capabilities. If a user has the edit_posts capability they will be able to see all the posts on the “Posts” screen, even if they can’t edit them. If a user has the edit_pages capability they will be able to see all the posts on the “Pages” screen, even if they can’t edit them.
How to Hide Other Users’ Posts
Hiding posts from other users is possible with the Free or Pro version of the PublishPress Permissions plugin. This plugin allows you to separate the viewing of posts from the Edit capabilities.
- In your WordPress menu, go to “Permissions”, then “Settings.
- Click the “Editing” tab and make sure you have the setting “List other user’s uneditable posts” unchecked.
After you do that, this plugin will hide all the Posts from other users. When users in the “Author” role go to the “Posts” screen, they will now only see their posts. What this means is that users won’t be able to see any posts that they can’t edit.
The image below shows what a user in the Author role can see on a WordPress site before PublishPress Permissions Pro is installed and correctly configured.
And this next image shows what the same user sees after the plugin is activated and configured. Notice that the numbers across the top of the screen have changed. For example, “Published” has dropped from 3 to 1.
This setup is fully compatible with the PublishPress Authors plugin so you can still safely assign more than one author to a post. It is also possible to block users from seeing other people’s files in the WordPress Media Library.
Change Who Can See Other Users’ Posts
The PublishPress Permissions plugin will hide non-editable posts for all users. You can restore this option for some user roles by installing the PublishPress Capabilities plugin. With this plugin, you will have extra tabs, including these permissions:
- list_posts: View posts that you can edit.
- list_others_posts: View posts that you can not edit.
- list_pages: View pages that you can edit.
- list_others_pages: View pages that you can not edit.
You can target specific statuses. For example:
- list_published_posts: View posts in the Published status.
- list_private_posts: View posts in the Private status.
This new screenshot shows what Authors can see now that they have the list_others_posts permission. They can see posts written by other users, but can not edit them.
Control access to your content
PublishPress Permissions allows you to enable or deny access to posts, pages, categories, tags and more. You can control who can view and edit your WordPress content.
Control your WordPress users
PublishPress Capabilities enables you to customize what users see in every area of WordPress from editing posts and pages to admin menus, profile pages.
The author profile plugin for WordPress
The PublishPress Authors plugin allows you to create beautiful profiles for your site’s authors. You can add social media links, recent posts, custom layouts and much more.
