Administrator

What Permissions Do Authors Have in WordPress? #

The “Administrator” role is one of the default user roles in WordPress, alongside “Subscriber”, “Contributor”, “Author” and “Editor”.

The Administrator role is the most powerful on a WordPress site. Administrators can go anywhere and change anything. They have complete power in a WordPress site.

This next image shows a chart taken from the WordPress Explained book which shows how Administrators fit in alongside other WordPress user roles.


What Can Administrators See in the WordPress Dashboard? #

People in the Administrator role can see every area of the WordPress admin area.

Administrator Dashboard
Administrator Dashboard

Can You Change the Administrator Permissions? #

Yes, you can change the Administrator permissions from the default WordPress settings.

However, we generally recommend against doing this. You should only change these settings with extreme caution.

The PublishPress Capabilities plugin is an excellent way to view and change the permissions for each user role. It has a backup and restore feature in case you make a mistake when changing user permissions.

This next image shows some of the permissions available to Administrators. You can uncheck of any of these boxes to remove the permission.

If you're interested in the technical details, read this guide to where users and permissions are stored in the WordPress database.