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Restricting Authors to View Only Posts They Created

Snippets by IsItWP

Do you want to restrict authors to view only posts they created within the admin panel? While there’s probably a plugin for this, we have created a quick code snippet that you can use to restrict authors to view only posts they created in WordPress.

Instructions:

All you have to do is add this code to your theme’s functions.php file or in a site-specific plugin:

function posts_for_current_author($query) {
        global $pagenow;
 
    if( 'edit.php' != $pagenow || !$query->is_admin )
        return $query;
 
    if( !current_user_can( 'manage_options' ) ) {
       global $user_ID;
       $query->set('author', $user_ID );
     }
     return $query;
}
add_filter('pre_get_posts', 'posts_for_current_author');

Note: If this is your first time adding code snippets in WordPress, then please refer to our guide on how to properly add code snippets in WordPress, so you don’t accidentally break your site.

If you liked this code snippet, please consider checking out our other articles on the site like: 15 best content marketing tools and how to create a contact form in WordPress.

Comments   Leave a Reply

  1. How do I do so it only shows current authors posts only but that it also shows another authors posts that is set manually by the id, in my case it is user id 3 I want all authors to see

    1. Hey Patrick, a simple solution is to create a password protected page for your authors and display posts from all authors on this page.

  2. Hello Chard, how to if thus will use for a page only not post, thanks need your feed back soon

    1. A page in WordPress is a type of post. That said, you may need to change ‘edit.php’ on line 4 to ‘edit.php?post_type=page’.

  3. can you help me with the code for Restricting authors to view only Category they created.
    Thanks

  4. Uldis Zalcmanis July 26, 2012 at 2:11 am

    is there any way to restrict author of comment to be the only who can see the comment? I know it sounds like a nonsense – don`t ask 🙂 I really need it! Thanks in advance.

  5. Thanks a lot Kevin!!

    1. No problem, glad I could help.

  6. Cliff Paulick May 22, 2012 at 9:07 am

    Also, does this work for only posts or also pages?

  7. Using WP 3.3.1 and this is not working. Is their an update on the code? Thanks.

  8. Ernest, I would venture to guess you would replace:

    if( !current_user_can( ‘manage_options’ ) ) {

    with:

    if( !current_user_can( ‘level_1’ ) ) {

    Anyone with a role higher than Contributor would be able to see all posts.

  9. Hi this is a great snippet! How can I change the code to have this effect for the user role “Contributors”?

  10. This worked as described. But, when I removed it from functions.php I couldn’t see any posts when logged in as anything other than an admin. ???

    1. Sorry. Looks like it may have been an issue with something else. Seems to work OK now.

      1. Hi Chad  Cool glad to see you got things working.

  11. Great snippet, thanks. Do you know a way to restrict visibility of the sub menu headings by user ID. i.e. the author of a post that is of custom_post_type A, only sees the sub menu for custom_post_type A while the other custom_post_type sub menus are hidden?

    1. Hi Craig glad you like the snippet. In regards to the sub menu this snippet should solve this for you. http://wpsnipp.com/index.php/functions-php/remove-sub-menu-dashboard-items/

  12. Thanks for this 😉 

    Does it work for all user classes (Authors, Editors etc? ) 

    1. This snippet will only display the posts create by that user should work for everyone. So if you have a user that created no posts they should see nothing within the posts admin view.

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