Allow WordPress Users to Control Lower-Level Accounts
When you install WordPress you'll see five user roles. These roles are in a hierarchy from Subscriber up to Administrator:
- Subscriber
- Contributor
- Author
- Editor
- Administrator
Subscribers are at the bottom of the hierarchy with very few permissions. Each subsequent role has more permissions up to Administrator which can do anything on your website.
We had a question from a user who wondered if this hierarchy could be used when creating users. Is it possible to allow Authors to only create Subscribers and Contributors? Or is it possible to allow Contributors to create only Subscribers?
Yes, it is possible with the PublishPress Permissions Pro plugin.
Table of Contents
The User Management feature
PublishPress Permissions Pro has a feature called “User Management”. If this feature is enabled, it stops user from editing the account of anyone with a higher level.
In your WordPress admin area, go to Permissions > Advanced and find “User Management”:
This feature has two key options:
- equal or lower role levels: Users who can edit users can only modify users in their own role, or roles with less access.
- lower role levels: Users who can edit users can only modify users in roles with less access.
Manage only lower-level users
The next part of this tutorial will introduce how this feature works in practical terms:
- Create a user with the “Author” role.
- Edit the permissions for the Author role. This is because, by default, only Administrators can create users in WordPress. Using the PublishPress Capabilities plugin go to the “Capabilities” and make sure that Authors have these permissions:
These permissions allow them to access the “Users” link in the WordPress admin area and also create new user accounts.
- You can check what an Editor seeing using the “User Testing” feature in PublishPress Capabilities.
If you choose “equal or lower role levels” in the User Management area, this screenshot shows what the Author will see. They will be able to editor users in the Author, Contributor, or Subscriber roles.
If you choose “lower role levels” in the User Management area, this screenshot shows what the Author will see. They will be able to editor users in the Author, Contributor, or Subscriber roles.
The Best Plugin to Control Access to Your WordPress 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.
