How to Disable Unwanted Widgets in WordPress Admin (2 Ways)

Many WordPress users want to disable unwanted widgets in their WordPress dashboard. When you use a lot of plugins that add widgets to the admin dashboard, these widgets can create a lot of clutter and make it hard to focus on important tasks when managing your website.

We looked for ways to solve this problem and found some plugins that can remove dashboard widgets, but a lot of them offer this feature for a price. We don’t think you should have to pay for something so simple.

The good news is, we’ve found an easy, free way to remove unwanted widgets from your WordPress admin dashboard. This guide will show you how to do it without spending any money or causing problems on your site.

Why Disable Unwanted Widgets in Your Dashboard?

When you log into your WordPress site, you’ll see a screen called the dashboard. This is part of the admin area where you manage your website. The dashboard includes several small boxes, called widgets, that display various information and tools.

Some of these widgets are from WordPress, while others are added by the plugins and themes you install. Typically, the more plugins you use, the more widgets you’ll see on the dashboard.

While these widgets can be useful, they can also create a lot of clutter. They might show information you don’t need or slow down your page loading. That’s why some website owners choose to disable unwanted widgets.

By removing unnecessary widgets, you can make your dashboard cleaner and easier to use. It’s like cleaning up your desk – when you remove items you don’t use, you can focus better on what’s important.

Disabling widgets can also make your dashboard respond quicker. This is helpful if you spend a lot of time managing your site. Just like some users turn off the WordPress admin bar to simplify their view, removing unnecessary widgets can make your work easier and more efficient.

With all that in mind, let’s take a look at how to disable unwanted widgets in WordPress. You can use the quick links below to skip to your preferred method:

How to Remove Specific WordPress Dashboard Widgets

You can easily tidy up your dashboard by going to Dashboard » Home, clicking the ‘Screen Options‘ button, and unchecking the widgets you don’t want to see. This is the quickest and simplest approach.

However, this method allows you and other users to easily display those widgets again by accessing the ‘Screen Options’ menu and re-enabling them.

A more permanent solution is to add custom code to your theme’s functions.php file. Don’t worry if this sounds complicated – we’ll do it safely using the WPCode plugin.

WPCode is a code snippet plugin that lets you customize your site beyond what plugins or themes typically allow. It acts as a middleman, enabling you to add custom code without directly editing your website files. WPCode can also disable your code if it encounters errors.

While you can use the free version of WPCode for this tutorial, we’ll use the premium version because it includes an AI code generator, which can be helpful later in this guide.

You can learn more about the plugin in our WPCode review.

To use WPCode, go ahead and install the WordPress plugin in your admin area. After that, go to Code Snippets » + Add Snippet.

Then, select ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet’ and click on the ‘+ Add Custom Snippet’ button.

Next, you need to select ‘PHP Snippet’ as the code type from the list of options that appear on the screen.

Now, give your custom code a simple name like ‘Remove WordPress Dashboard Widgets’ to easily identify it later.

After that, paste the following snippet into the ‘Code Preview’ box:

function remove_dashboard_widgets() {
    global $wp_meta_boxes;

    // Remove the Welcome panel
    remove_action('welcome_panel', 'wp_welcome_panel');

    // Remove Site Health Status widget
    unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_site_health']);

    // Remove WordPress Events and News widget
    unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_primary']);
}

add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'remove_dashboard_widgets');

This code removes the Welcome panel, Site Health Status widget, and WordPress Events and News widget from your dashboard.

You can modify the code to remove other widgets as well. If you’re unsure how to do this, you can use WPCode’s AI feature.

Simply click on the AI button next to the ‘Code Type’ dropdown menu.

Then, enter a prompt asking WPCode to add lines of code to remove another widget. For example, we asked it to remove the Activity widget.

After that, just click ‘Generate.’

The AI will add a new line to remove the specified widget:

function remove_dashboard_widgets() {
    global $wp_meta_boxes;

    // Remove the Welcome panel
    remove_action( 'welcome_panel', 'wp_welcome_panel' );

    // Remove Site Health Status widget
    unset( $wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_site_health'] );

    // Remove WordPress Events and News widget
    unset( $wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_primary'] );

    // Remove Activity widget
    unset( $wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_activity'] );
}

add_action( 'wp_dashboard_setup', 'remove_dashboard_widgets' );

With that done, just scroll down to the ‘Insertion’ section. Make sure the ‘Insert Method’ is set to ‘Auto Insert’ and the Location is ‘Admin Only.’

Next, just toggle the Inactive button to make it ‘Active’ and click on the ‘Save Snippet’ button.

When you return to Dashboard » Home, you’ll only see the default widgets you didn’t disable.

In our example, this leaves the ‘At a Glance’ and ‘Quick Draft’ widgets visible.

How to Completely Empty Your WordPress Admin Dashboard

If you don’t use the dashboard at all and want to completely empty it of widgets, then WPCode offers a code snippet template for this purpose.

To use it, go to Code Snippets » + Add Snippet. After that, find the ‘Empty Admin Dashboard’ code using the search bar and click on the ‘Connect to library to unlock (Free)’ button.

Now, a popup window will appear asking you to create a WPCode account or log in to your existing one.

After logging in, check the box that says ‘Enable pushing snippets from the library to your site’ and click on the ‘Connect to WordPress’ button.

The window will then close, and you will return to the previous WPCode page.

Now, the button under the ‘Empty Admin Dashboard’ option will change to ‘Use snippet.’ Go ahead and click on it.

At this stage, WPCode will set up the code for you.

Your screen should now display the prepared code snippet like so:

You can activate this code and update it as is. Alternatively, you could add an extra line of code to make the snippet work only for non-admin users.

Here’s the full custom code snippet if you choose to add that extra line:

add_action( 'wp_dashboard_setup', function () {
    // Check if the current user does NOT have admin privileges
    if ( ! current_user_can( 'manage_options' ) ) {
        global $wp_meta_boxes;
        $wp_meta_boxes['dashboard'] = array();
        remove_action( 'welcome_panel', 'wp_welcome_panel' );
    }
}, 1000 );

After making any changes, activate the code snippet and click the ‘Update’ button above.

With this done, all WordPress dashboard widgets will be disabled, either for all users or just for non-admin users, depending on which version of the code you used.

Here’s what it should look like:

Discover More Tips and Tricks to Customize WordPress Admin

Now that you know how to manage your WordPress dashboard widgets, you might want to learn more ways to customize your admin area. Here are some helpful articles to make your WordPress experience even better:

• Change the admin color scheme in WordPress – Learn how to make your admin area look nicer with custom colors.
• Vital tips to protect your WordPress admin area – Find out how to keep your website’s backend safe from hackers.
• Add custom admin notices in WordPress – Learn how to create your own messages for users in the admin area.
• Add dark mode to your WordPress admin dashboard – See how to make your dashboard easier on the eyes when working at night.
• Limit dashboard access in WordPress – Find out how to control what different users can see and do in the dashboard.
• Add or change WordPress admin icons – Learn how to replace the default WordPress admin icons with unique custom icons.

We hope this article helped you learn how to disable unwanted widgets in WordPress admin. You may also want to see our guide on expert picks of the best WordPress activity log and tracking plugins and our step-by-step guide on how to deactivate plugins when you can’t access wp-admin.

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