Create, Edit & Remove a User

In this article we will cover the 3 basics when it comes to managing users on a WordPress website. It’s assumed that when you’re completing these steps that you have access to a user account that has permissions to create, edit & remove users.

Please note that on some websites you may find there are additional fields that aren’t mentioned in this article. The purpose of this article is to cover the default fields and behaviours of a user, you may need to seek out another article about other fields or advice from a colleague.

Creating A New User #

To start off with you will need to open the admin area of the website you’re adding a new user to, then you’ll want to complete the following steps:

1. In the left hand side menu find the “Users” and click it
2. Now the top of the page click “Add New”
3. Next you need to enter the following information for the user:
   • Username: this can either be their name, a couple of words or even their email
   • Email: pretty simple, this is the email of the user you’re creating
   • First/Last Name: this is optional, but if you so wish fill out their first and last name
   • Website: 99% of the time this field can be skipped unless your website publicly displays the website field of a user
   • Password: feel free to use the auto-generated password, they can reset it once setup
   • Send the new user an email about their account: ensure that this is checked
   • Role: each role has different capabilities, to decide which role is best for this user view the list of roles and their capabilities here: WordPress Default Roles & Capabilities
     • When adding a user to the wiki ensure their role is “Administrator”
4. Now click the “Add New User” button

Editing An Existing User #

Now you’ve added a user successfully, what if you made a typo in their email or you need to manually reset their password for them? Thankfully it’s super easy to do, just follow the below steps:

1. In the left hand side menu find the “Users” and click it
2. Either scroll through the list or using the search box in the top right find the user you want to edit
3. Click on the user or hover and click “edit”
4. Find the field you wish to update and simply change it
5. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click “Update User”

Deleting An Existing User #

If a member of the team has left, or you’ve somehow got 2 accounts for someone instead of 1 you might find yourself needing to delete an account. Follow the steps below to delete an existing user:

1. In the left hand side menu find the “Users” and click it
2. Either scroll through the list or using the search box in the top right find the user you want to delete
3. Hover over the user and click “delete”
4. You’ll now be asked “What should be done with content owned by this user?” most of the time we wont any of the things they’ve created to be deleted, which means we must select “Attribute all content to:”
5. Now select the user you wish the contents “author” to be changed to
6. Now click “Confirm Deletion”