I Can’t See the Author Dropdown Box in WordPress

This week, one PublishPress user asked us about an interesting WordPress problem.

They could not see the Author option when they were writing posts. This is how the Author dropdown normally appears:

They could not even enable the “Authors” box if they went to the “Options” panel in Gutenberg:

And the “Authors” feature was also missing from the “Quick Edit” area of WordPress. Normally, you will see an “Authors” dropdown when you click “Quick Edit” for a post.

So what is happening here? Where did the “Authors” feature go?

It turns out there are three likely explanations:

Explanation #1. You only have one Author

This is what happened to our PublishPress user. They only had one user who was in a user role with the ability to write posts.

They were an “Administrator”. However, all of the other users on the site were “Subscribers” and did not have any permission to write posts.

Because there is only one possible author for each post, WordPress automatically hides the “Authors” feature.

There is one caveat: it is possible for the “Authors” feature to appear if someone else is chosen as an Author, but has now been moved to the “Subscriber” role.

For more details on the default user roles on how this can happen, check out these links.

• What permissions do Subscribers have in WordPress?
• What permissions do Contributors have in WordPress?
• What permissions do Authors have in WordPress?
• What permissions do Editors have in WordPress?

Explanation #2. You are a Subscriber or Contributor

The Subscriber and Contributor roles are the lowest two roles in WordPress. They have the fewest permissions. This post has details on the technical side of user role levels.

Subscribers can not write or edit any content. So they can not even access the “Posts” screen, let alone see the Authors box.

Contributors can write content, but they only have access to their own Posts. They are now allowed to interact with content written by other users. So they are also denied access to the Authors box.

If you want to allow a role like Contributors to see the Authors box, you can give do this by giving them the “Edit Others” permission. You can do this with the PublishPress Capabilities plugin.

Explanation #3. Custom post types

Many custom post types don't have support for authors. Here's how to add authors to any custom post type.

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