How to Hide Author Bios in Posts on WordPress
Last Updated: December 20, 2020 in Guides
Author biography maybe an important factor in a blog post as it shows readers who write the post they are reading. For blog posts on WordPress sites, the author’s name is often displayed at the top or at the bottom of the posts.
However, sometimes, for some reason, you will want to leave it unpublished.
For example, the author wants to be anonymous or there are multiple members work in a blog post. So, how to hide the author bios?
At present, WordPress has no default option for administrators to remove author bios from the posts. Still, you can follow my guide to do that.
In this article, I will share two simple ways to hide author info from WordPress posts.
In the Admin Dashboard, find the User menu, then click on the All Users tab.
Now, we have 2 options for the next actions:
- Hide the author bios on all the posts which he owns.
- Hide the author bios on multiple posts no matter what who is the author.
Caution:
Option 1 - action on each author: afterward, you can change the name for all the posts owned by each author.
Option 2 - action on multiple posts: afterward, when you want to restore the author’s name on any post, you will need to edit them manually. This work can be time-consuming if you need to edit many posts.
Choose one which is fit your requirements. Now I will guide you step by step to do in each option.
Firstly, in the lists of available users on the web (in All Users tab), click on the author that you want to hide his name from all of his posts.
Now we can modify his profile in this box. Scroll down and stop at the Name section.
Choose a name for the author which you want to display on the website, then put it in the Nickname (required) field. It may be Anonymous Author or Somebody/Someone, for example.
Next, choose that nickname in the option of the Display name publicly as field.
You may also edit the other information of the author such as his profile picture, biographical info, contact info, etc. here.
To finish, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the Update Profile button to save your changes.
Back to any post written by the above author, his name has been changed to the name you set in the previous step. And readers will know nothing about the author.
Here is our result!
Step 1: Create a new anonymous author
In the same Users section, instead of choosing specific authors to edit nickname, we choose Add New to create a totally new user.
We will set this profile as following:
- Fill in the User Name (required) and Email (required) with anything you want. For example, User Name is Anonymous Author. And you do not need to use real Email, just write something there to complete the procedure.
- In the Role option, set it to be Author (or any role that has the right to write blog posts).
Then, click Add New User to successfully add this new author to your WordPress site.
Step 2: Reset the author on the posts that you want to hide the author’s bios
In the Admin Dashboard, we go to Posts > All Posts to view all the blog posts on site.
Tick all the posts you want to hide the author name, find Bulk Action box, choose Edit then press Apply.
Tips:
In the event, you have many posts to choose, you may set to view more posts on one page by this action: Find the Screen Option at the top right corner, press it. Then, fill the number “999” to the Number of items per page box. Press Apply then 999 posts will be shown on one page. Just pick which you want and do as above.
WordPress will now show you the bulk editing options. Choose the Anonymous author account which you created earlier in the Author option.
Press Update button to change the author’s information to the new Anonymous author on all posts you chose.
Now, all selected posts on your WordPress site will only show the author’s name as anonymous author or someone... as you set.
The result is exactly the same as in Choice 1, but in the posts which you chose only.
There are many plugins that can help you to hide author information. Here, in this article, I will choose the WP Meta and Date Remover to guide you as it is very simple.
Step 1: Install and activate the WP Meta and Date Remover plugin
From the Admin Dashboard, go to the Plugin section. Click on Add New and search for WP Meta and Date Remover plugin.
Then install and Activate it on your WordPress site by pressing the Install button, then Activate button in the same position.
Step 2: Enable the plugin to take effect
Go to the Settings menu in the Admin Dashboard and find the WP Meta and Date Remover sub-menu.
Click the Disable - Enable button to change it to be Enable. That is to enable the plugin and allow it to remove the author information in all the blog posts.
Just scroll down and click SAVE CHANGES to finish.
Now, all the blog posts on your websites show no information about the authors and released date, category, etc. as well.
If you want to display the author’s name in specified posts, you can adjust that in individual posts following this way:
- From the Admin Dashboard, find Posts > All Posts, then choose the post you want to edit.
- At the right of the edit screen, there is a box named Remove Meta and Date that is automatically ticked as you enable the WP Meta and Date Remover plugin. Untick this box in posts if you want to show the author’s name and published date in this blog post.
- Click Update to save changes.
In case you want to show the author’s info on all the blog posts, just disable the WP Meta and Date Remover plugin in the Settings menu by changing the Disable-Enable button to Disable state.
Final words
Those are two simple ways to hide an author’s biography in WordPress blog posts as I said. But they are not the only ways to do. There are many other ways of using another plugin or CSS code. But, it seems quite difficult to use CSS code if you are not a developer.
Anyway, if you know any other simple but effective method to remove the author name in WordPress blog posts, share with us by leaving a comment below. Thanks! And if you have a multi-author site, you can find plugins to manage it here.