by
PublishPress
4.7 (143 reviews)
PublishPress Capabilities: User Role Access Control, Admin Area Permissions
User role editing for WordPress. Manage user roles, control capabilities and permissions, and restrict admin access for any role.
PublishPress Capabilities ranks #461 among WordPress.org plugins with 100,000+ active installations, is #24 of 1,143 in the Editor & Writing category, a 4.7/5 rating from 143 reviews, and was last updated Sep 10, 2026. Data from WordPress.org, refreshed twice daily — see methodology.
Compatible with WP 7.1
v2.50.1
Current Version v2.50.1
Updated 6 days ago
Last Update on 10 Sep, 2026
Refreshed 14 hours ago
Last Refreshed on
#24 of 1,143 in Editor & Writing
Top 1% by installs
Downloads -20.4% this week
Actively maintained
Rank
#461
—
No change
Active Installs
100K+
-3.2%
KW Avg Position
4.2
—
No change
Downloads
4.3M
+309 today
Support Resolved
100%
—
No change
Rating
94%
Review 4.7 out of 5
4.7
(143 reviews)
Next Milestone 200K
100K+
200K+
175
Ranks to Climb
-
Growth Needed
8,000,000
Active Installs
Pro
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Need 97,766 more installs to reach 200K+
Rank Changes
Current
#461
Change
Best
#
Downloads Growth
Downloads
Growth
Peak
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Upgrade NowReviews & Ratings
4.7
143 reviews
Overall
94%
5
128
(90%)
4
3
(2%)
3
5
(3%)
2
1
(1%)
1
6
(4%)
Support Threads Overview
Resolved
Unresolved
2
Total Threads
2
Resolved
0
Unresolved
100%
Resolution Rate
Security History
Source: WPVulnerability8 known vulnerabilities on record · 1 in the last 24 months · checked 1 week ago
-
CVE-2026-32394 · Fixed in v2.32.0
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CVE-2022-3366 · Fixed in v2.5.2
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Fixed in v2.3.3
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Fixed in v2.3.3
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CVE-2021-25032 · Fixed in v2.3.1
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Fixed in v1.5.9
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Fixed in v2.3.3
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Fixed in v1.5.9
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- Version
- 2.50.1
- Last Updated
- Sep 10, 2026
- Requires WP
- 5.5+
- Tested Up To
- 7.1
- PHP Version
- 7.2.5 or higher
- Author
- PublishPress
Support & Rating
- Rating
- ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 4.7
- Reviews
- 143
- Support Threads
- 2
- Resolved
- 100%
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TL;DR
AI summary of the plugin's readmeThis plugin is for WordPress site administrators who need to manage user roles, capabilities, and admin access. It solves the problem of controlling what different users can see and do across the WordPress dashboard, editor, profile, and frontend.
- Edit and create user roles
- Control WordPress capabilities
- Hide Gutenberg/Classic Editor features
- Remove admin toolbar and dashboard items
- Customize admin area styling
- Restrict navigation menu access
- Redirects for login/logout/registration
- Automatic permission backups
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about PublishPress Capabilities: User Role Access Control, Admin Area Permissions
Go to Capabilities > Roles in your WordPress admin menu. You can create a new role from scratch, or copy an existing role and adjust it — copying is usually faster, because you start from a working set of capabilities instead of an empty one. Once the role exists, open Capabilities and choose it from the dropdown in the top-left corner. Check the capabilities that role should have and save. On a multisite network you can also choose whether the new role is added to one site or the whole network. Click here to see how to manage user roles.
Changing permissions is the one part of WordPress where a mistake can shut you out of your own site, so PublishPress Capabilities is built to make that recoverable: Every change is backed up automatically, before it is applied. Go to Capabilities > Backup > Restore to roll back to any of the last 20 automatic backups, including the one taken when you first installed the plugin. Your own role is protected from changes that would remove your access to the Capabilities screens. Reset to WordPress defaults is available as a last resort under Capabilities > Backup > Reset Roles. If you are about to make a large change, take a manual backup first from the Backup tab. You can also export roles from one site and import them into another. Click here to see how to backup permissions.
Yes. The plugin is tested against the current WordPress release, and the Editor Features screen lets you hide features in both the block editor and the Classic Editor — sidebar panels such as Tags, Categories and Excerpt, the Publish button, and even the post title, body or permalink, per role.
Many plugins add admin menu links with no way to control who sees them. PublishPress Capabilities Pro adds an Admin Menus screen where you can mark any top-level or sub-menu link as blocked for a given role. In the free version, you can hide a large amount of the admin without touching menus: use Admin Features to remove toolbar items and dashboard widgets, Profile Features to strip the Profile screen, and the Capabilities screen to remove the capability a plugin's menu depends on — which hides the menu as a side effect. Click to see how to block Admin menu access.
PublishPress Capabilities is a user role editor that offers you the ability to backup and restore your WordPress user permissions. This feature is very helpful if you want to test out changes on your site, or you've installed a new plugin that has changed your site's permissions. Changing permissions in WordPress can be a tricky task. It's possible to lock yourself or others out of some important features. So, we've built a way to keep your site safe. Every time you change your permissions, the PublishPress Capabilities plugin will automatically create a backup. If you make a mistake, go to the “Backup” menu link and click the “Restore” tab. Here you can browse through the most recent 20 automatic backups. The plugin also saves a backup from when you first installed PublishPress Capabilities. And you can click the “Backup” tab to manually create backups. Click the yellow “Restore Selected Roles” button and you'll be able to roll back to a previous version.
A green role title means the role does not exist in your current set. A green capability is set in the role backup, but not the current role. A stuck-through capability is set in the current role, but not the role backup.
If you really need to clean up and refresh your site, PublishPress Capabilities does allow you to restore the default WordPress permissions. Go to Capabilities > Backup and click the “Reset Roles” tab. Before you take next step, make sure to read this warning: “WARNING: This will delete and/or modify stored role definitions. If you have installed any plugin that adds new roles or capabilities, these will be lost. It is recommended to use this only as a last resort!” If you want to proceed, click the “Reset to WordPress defaults” link. PublishPress Capabilities will ask you if you're really sure you want to do this. Click “OK” to continue. Once the process is complete, you'll see the message, “Roles and Capabilities reset to WordPress defaults”.
WooCommerce is the most popular WordPress eCommerce plugin. You can create beautiful store with themes customized to your brand and industry and you'll find 1,000's of tools and popular integrations. The PublishPress Capabilities plugin enables you to control permissions for the WooCommerce plugin and also WooCommerce user roles. You can use this plugin as a WooCommerce user role editor. Go to the “Capabilities” link in your WordPress admin menu. In the main area of your screen will see options for WooCommerce Products, Orders and Coupons. These permissions cover editing, deleting and reading. In the right sidebar, you can also enable permissions for WooCommerce taxonomies. Check the boxes for Product categories, Product tags, and Product shipping classes. After you check those boxes and refresh your screen, you will see Manager, Edit, Assign and Delete options for Product categories, Product tags, and Product shipping classes. The Pro version of PublishPress Capabilities allows you to block access to admin menu links in WooCommerce. This is useful because WooCommerce has very limited options for controlling who can access the admin screens. When you first install WooCommerce, you'll see four top-level menu links, plus sub-menus. All of these links are available to users in the Administrator and Shop Manager roles: WooCommerce Products Analytics Marketing It is possible to control who can access these links by using the PublishPress Capabilities Pro plugin. After installing PublishPress Capabilities Pro, go to “Capabilities”, then “Admin Menus” in your WordPress admin area. In the top-left corner of this screen, choose the role that you want to edit. Scroll down and you can enter a red X for any menu link that you don't want users in that role to access. This is a great way to customize a WooCommerce role such as Shop Manager. This approach works for the core WooCommerce plugin and can also be used for WooCommerce add-on plugins such as WooCommerce Subscriptions, WooCommerce Shipping, and WooCommerce Bookings. PublishPress Capabilities can help you manage WooCommerce permissions. Click here to learn about WooCommerce menu permissions.
The Pro version of PublishPress Capabilities allows you to block access to admin menu links in the Contact Form 7 plugin. This is useful because Contact Form 7 has very limited options for controlling who can access the admin screens. Contact Form 7 is the most popular contact form plugin for WordPress. You can manage multiple contact forms, and easily customize each form and the emails it sends. Contact Form 7 supports Ajax-powered submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering and much more.
Contact Forms Add New Integration It is possible to control who can access these links by using the PublishPress Capabilities Pro plugin. After installing PublishPress Capabilities Pro, go to “Capabilities”, then “Admin Menus” in your WordPress admin area. In the top-left corner of this screen, choose the role that you want to edit. Scroll down and you can enter a red X for any menu link that you don't want users in the Editor role to access. This approach works for the core Contact Form 7 plugin and can also be used for add-on plugins such as Flamingo which records entries for Contact Form 7 forms. Click here to learn about Contact Form 7 menu permissions.
