This post will show you how to add a new user, set roles and privileges to the user in a WordPress website. If you are a site owner or a site admin, it is very important to understand the privileges and rights of the various user roles in WordPress because you may the giving higher rights and access to someone who shouldn’t have them especially for security reasons.
Let’s dive into the various rights and privileges of WordPress user roles
Administrator: The administrator (admin for short) has the highest level of permissions on the site. The admin have the power to access almost everything like delete posts of other users, edit site’s template and source code, install, modify and delete plugins etc.
Editor: The Editor has access to all posts, pages, comments, categories, and tags on the site and can also upload media. The Editor can modify and delete posts of users below the level of Editor but cannot modify or delete the post of the Administrator. The Editor’s dashboard appearance is different from the Admin’s dashboard. For instance, the theme’s customization option isn’t available in the Editor’s dashboard.
Author: The Author can write, upload media, edit, and publish their own posts. The Author dashboard appearance is different from the Editor’s dashboard.
Contributor: Cannot publish or upload a post directly. A contributor can write and edit their own posts but the posts can be published only by any of his superior.
Subscriber: This is rarely used. The subscribers are users who subscribe to the site’s updates.
How to Add a New User & Set a Role
On your WordPress dashboard, click on ‘Users’ > ‘Add New user’
- Input the username (must not be a used username on the site) and email
- First name, last and website are optional
- Put in the password, you can use the generated password if you wish. Thick ‘Send User Notification’ if you want to send a notification to the user’s email.
- Click on the drop-down icon to select the user role, click on add new user to add the user
