How to Hide WordPress Metaboxes in the Post Editor

A WordPress website always starts by looking very clean. But after you choose a theme and install a lot of plugins, the user interface quickly becomes very crowded.

In other guides, we've shown you how to hide WordPress admin menus, hide the admin toolbar, and hide dashboard widgets. In this tutorial, we'll explain how to hide the “metaboxes” that appear below your WordPress posts and in the sidebar, when you're editing a post.

In the image below, you can see some typical metaboxes from the Yoast SEO and TaxoPress plugins.

Yoast and TaxoPress metaboxes
View Metaboxes

Option #1. Hide the Meta Boxes for Yourself

This first option allows you to hide the meta boxes when you are editing posts.

  • Click the three dots in the top-right corner of the screen.
Click to hide WordPress metaboxes
Three Dots
  • Scroll to the bottom of the panel that appears in the right sidebar.
  • Click the “Preferences” link.
  • In the “General” area, you can disable any meta boxes that you don't want to see.
Disable metaboxes in WordPress
Panels 1

Option #2. Hide metaboxes for everyone

The Pro version of the PublishPress Capabilities plugin allows you to hide metaboxes for specific user roles.

To hide these metaboxes, follow these steps:

  • Go to “PublishPress”, then “Editor Features” in your WordPress admin menu.
  • Choose the user role you want to hide the metaboxes for:
Editor Feature Restrictions
Hide Metaboxes Roles
  • Scroll down to the bottom and find the “Metaboxes” area. If you don't see all your metaboxes, go to edit a post and then reload this “Editor Features” screen. Place a red X for any metabox you want to hide. In the image below, we are hiding both the “TaxoPress” and “Yoast SEO” metaboxes.
Hide metaboxes in WordPress
Hide Metaboxes WordPress
  • Click “Save Changes”.
  • Visit the post editing screen as a user in the role you selected. You will no longer see the metaboxes you selected.
  • You can repeat this process to hide the metaboxes for other roles.
PublishPress Capabilities icon
  • Steve is the founder of PublishPress. He's been working with open source software for over 20 years. Originally from the UK, he now lives in Sarasota in the USA. This profile is generated by the PublishPress Authors plugin.

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