Do you want to allow users to add favorite posts in WordPress? Allowing users to add favorite posts offers another way for them to engage with your content. In this article, we will show you how to easily allow users to add favorite posts in WordPress.
Why Add Favorite Posts in WordPress?
We are often asked by our users about how to decrease bounce rate and boost user engagement on their WordPress blogs.
When most beginners start a WordPress blog, they try to get more comments as a way to boost user engagement.
However, most users on your site do not leave comment. This can be easily solved by adding other interactions that do not require much effort.
Your users will be more likely to click on a button than writing a comment. Adding post ratings, like buttons, or add to favorite button allows you to offer effortless interactions on your site.
Allowing users to add favorite posts, helps registered users revisit their favorite posts. It will also help you understand what kind of content users like on your site.
You can then show new users what others like the most on your site and get them engaged with your most favorited content.
Having said that, let’s see how to easily allow users to add favorite posts on your WordPress blog.
Allow Users to Add Favorite Posts in WordPress
First thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Favorite Posts plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to visit Settings » WP Favorite Posts to configure plugin settings.
First option on the settings page is to enable ‘Add to favorite’ option for registered users only. You need to leave this unchecked if you want all visitors to see the ‘Add to favorite’ button.
Next, you need to choose where to show the ‘add to favorite’ link. The plugin can automatically show it before or after the post content. Advanced users can also choose custom method and use <?php wpfp_link() ?> template tag inside WordPress theme files.
Now you need to choose the image icon you want to show next to ‘Add to favorite’ link. The plugin comes with a few images that you can use. You can also upload your own image or don’t show any image at all.
After that you can choose the number of posts you would like to show on your favorite posts page. The default option is 20, you can change that if you want.
Lastly, you can enable or disable statistics. You will need to keep it enabled if you want to show most favorited posts in the sidebar widget.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Update Options’ button to store your settings.
You can now visit any single post on your website and you will see the Add to Favorite link.
Showing Most Favorited Posts in WordPress
You may want to show your most favorited posts in your blog’s sidebar. Here is how you would do that.
Head over to Appearance » Widgets page. Under the list of available widgets you will notice ‘Most Favorited Posts’ widget. You will need to drag and drop this widget to a sidebar. If you need help adding widget, then check out our guide on how to add and use widgets in WordPress.
You can select the number of posts you want to show in the widget. Don’t forget to click on the save button to store your widget settings.
You can now visit your website to see the most favorited posts in your blog’s sidebar.
Showing a User’s Favorite Posts in WordPress
This plugin stores favorite posts for non-registered users in cookies. For registered users, it saves their favorite posts in your WordPress database.
Here is how you can show each user their favorite posts on your site.
Head over to Appearane » Widgets page and add ‘Users Favorite Posts’ widget to a sidebar.
You can select the number of posts you want to show in the widget. Don’t forget to click on the save button to store your widget settings.
This is how it looked on our demo site:
You can also show user’s favorite posts in a WordPress post, page, or text widget using the [wp-favorite-posts] shortcode. This is particularly helpful if you want to create a separate page where users can see all their favorite posts.
We hope this article helped you learn how to allow users to add favorite posts in WordPress. You may also want to see our complete step by step WordPress SEO guide for beginners.
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Globasource says
Thanks a lot for sharing this blog. Really nice and fresh content. All the information is helpful for us.
WPBeginner Support says
You’re welcome, glad you like our content
Admin
Fede Bcc says
Hello,
please, is the “WP Favorite Posts” plugin still updated and supported? I read comments from various people that it is not being updated anymore. If that’s the case, could you please suggest any alternative plugin for user favourite/bookmarking?
Many thanks!
Kind regards,
Fede
Reza says
I have a big problem with it!
when I deselect a post after refresh the page, it come back!
remove not work at all!
daf says
Hi,
I am using this wp-favorite post plugin, and it is finely working. I used the shortcode to show the favorited post into a seperate page. I want to show the count of favorited post in that perticular page.
Is there any method to get the count of Favorited post .??
Huzan says
Hi,
I would like to know if there is a way where in the homepage of my website can be customized based on a users likes/dislikes. The categories he likes their posts should come right at the top.
Looking for a solution.
parteet says
Can you tell me about the WordPress site Designing. I wanna design my site
Matus says
Could you please make a tutorial how to correctly add a hreflang to WordPress?
Hope you’ll reconsider my request.
WPBeginner Staff says
It can, but you will have to make some changes to the plugin which we don’t recommend/
john says
Hello, is that the plugin works with pages ?
jimario says
Will this also work with user profiles. For example, i want my site to allow some users to be able to view a list of other viewers profile pages. On those pages, they won’t be able to edit the other users’ profiles, but they will be able to favorite them–at least that’s what I’m trying to accomplish. Will your method work?
WPBeginner Support says
No, we think you are looking for something quite different this method will probably not work for that.
Admin
Seth says
What plugin do you recommend to get this feature? I tried “GD MyList” and “Favorites” plugins and neither gives the option to see other users lists.
jimario says
Is it possible to have user profiles also saved as favorites? If I give access to users to view profiles of other users, I’d like those users to be able to Favorite any other user profile that they view using this plugin. is this possible using the method you described in your article?
ALEXANDRA says
Hi, is there any way to create few sites for users, for example:
– Add to favorites,
-Add to currently reading,
-Add to watchlist etc
and create specific pages for all this options?
WPBeginner Support says
Yes it is possible to create profile pages with tabs where users can see their favorites, currently reading, watchlist, etc. However, if you want to do that we would recommend using a membership plugin.
Admin
Ayush says
Nice plugin and tip brother, I installed it and worked super-fine.
And i was wondering if there’s a way I can show what posts a particular user favorites in user’s profile, I mean a user can indeed see what posts he/she likes but is there a way a user can see what posts other user favorites ?
Jane says
i just installed it and it worked fine
I have one question. Is it possible when you show all your favorites that you get image of the article/item/blog you liked also? Orelse you have to remember it by the name.
Then i would be sooo happy
(i am newbie in wordpress, so i am not a geek on codes.. i hope its possible to install something so it just work?)
Editorial Staff says
Yes it is possible, but you would have to edit a few codes. wpfp-page-template.php << Look at this file in the plugin's folder. You would basically have to recreate this query in your custom page template. Sorry, it sounds a bit overwhelming, but that is what is needed.
Admin
Jane says
Ok – thanks for the reply. I have been looking for a nice theme where its already done, but with no luck. I am not good enough myself, when it comes to make coding from scratz..
Cory says
I was able to show the content of my post by adding the_content to the template.
Cory says
If you’re having issues with being able to favorite a post and it never shows in your favorites page, try this solution: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/custom-post-type-24?replies=10
worked perfectly for me!
kenny says
This plugin is not functioning at all I installed it and activated it but my server respond with fatal error whoever is a developer of this plugin should get rid of it and stop putting low grades on WordPress awsome plugins.
Abigail Gorton says
I think this is one of thoie plugins we could politely call ‘delicate’. It has an awesome features list and when it works it is just great but it is obviously NOT working on every theme / relaease / server and it is not playing nicely with other plugins.
I really want this functionality. When I first installed it, it was up and running immmediately. When I tried to configure it a bit, it broke. When I uninstalled it, I found that the uninstall was not clean and complete – it was no longer showing in my admin panel, or through standard FTP, but when I did ‘show hidden files’ on FTP it showed up. This is so wrong – shoulda uninstalled when it claimed to form admin and should not be hidden.
So I deleted the hidden files but when I reinstalled the plugin, some of my settings were still as configured which suggest I was not able to fully remove it form my server. So wrong.
I have tried deleting and reinstalling multiple times and cannot get it back to clean.
So I am one of the 50% for whom it does not work, which is a shame as it looke pretty good for the 5 minutes it was up on my site.
Ubaidullah Butt says
When I used “{{wp-favorite-posts}}” for showing up all favorite posts on a page, There was nothing except “Clear Favorites” link. Can anybody help me with this. Thanks in advance.
Editorial Staff says
Did you favorite any post? If not, then do that first and the page will update itself.
Admin
Tito says
Hi, I’m currently have this problem and yup I’ve favorited numerous posts and still nothing. Any ideas? The support forum is all but dead unfortunately
Cheers
Cory says
I have the same issue. Favorited a bunch of posts. they dont show in the favorites page. did you fix it?
Data says
Hoping this will help someone else having this same issue – as mentioned below, you have to have posts favorited already for the page to display anything.
If you have marked something as a favorite and it isn’t showing up, it is likely because you are favoriting a page or custom post type, not a post of type “post.”
If you want to favorite “page” types, or any other custom post type (ex: recipes on a cooking site), then you’ll need to make a simple edit to the wpfp-page-template.php file.
Around line 23 you should see a comment on supporting other post types (page, custom types, etc.).
Uncomment this line: $qry[‘post_type’] = array(‘post’,’page’);
That should do it for adding “page” to the types allowed to be favorited.
If you have other custom types you can add them to that array, or in place of something else, like:
$qry[‘post_type’] = array(‘recipe’,’page’);
Milan says
Thanks a lot. The post is very helpful.
Guillermo Santiago says
The WP Favorite Posts plugin Sucks. It is also deprecated and not functioning properly with wordpress 3.2 up. Do your homework.
Editorial Staff says
The article was written in March. We have the plugin running on sites using 3.4.2 and it is working. Perhaps you should do your homework.
Admin
Pranjal says
Though, it words good but that Gif loading image is continuously showing wherever, I had implemented. And also there’s no support from the developer of this plugin
Jared says
I also used this plugin for a client project a few months back and it worked just fine – despite the voting.
Kyle Suss says
Any idea if this works for custom post types?
wpbeginner says
@Kyle Suss Not sure if it does, but if it doesn’t, it wouldn’t be very hard to make that customization.
frachmadin says
Hi, thanks for this great post. I am currently using GD Star Rating plugin on my blog. Do both have the same or different functions? I am interested to try using the WP Favorite Posts plugin. Thank you.