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How to Instantly Switch Between User Accounts in WordPress

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Do you want to instantly switch between user accounts in WordPress?

When testing new features on your website, you may need to switch between accounts with different user roles. Logging in and out of these accounts manually takes time and can quickly get frustrating.

In this article, we will show you how to instantly switch between user accounts in WordPress.

Instantly Switch User Accounts in WordPress

Why Switch Between WordPress User Accounts?

By default, WordPress allows you to add new users and authors to your website. Each account has a user role that controls the actions they can perform on your website and the information they can access.

Creating new WordPress user role

As the site owner, you are automatically assigned the administrator user role. This gives you complete control, including the ability to manage all user accounts.

When testing new features on your website, you may need to see how things look to people with different user roles and permissions. This is particularly important when you have lots of different users, like if you run a WordPress membership website or an online store.

You can create test accounts and then log in and out of these accounts manually. However, this will take a lot of time and can make it difficult to thoroughly test new features on your WordPress blog.

With that in mind, let’s see how you can instantly switch between user accounts in WordPress.

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How to Instantly Switch Between User Accounts

The quickest way to switch between different test accounts is by using User Switching. This free plugin allows you to access any user account with the click of a button and without entering any passwords.

First, you need to install and activate the User Switching plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to go to the Users page in your WordPress dashboard. You can now hover your move over any account and click on the ‘Switch To’ link when it appears.

How to easily switch user accounts in WordPress

The plugin will now log you into that user account without asking for a password or username. With that done, you can test your WordPress website while logged in as that user.

User switching is only available for users with the admin role, so you won’t see the ‘Switch To’ link while logged in as any other user.

When you are ready to switch back to the admin account on your WordPress blog, simply hover over the username in the toolbar. In the dropdown that appears, click on ‘Switch back to admin.’

Switch between admin account and other user roles

We hope this article helped you instantly switch between user accounts in WordPress. You may also want to check out our guide on how to allow user registration on your WordPress site or see our expert picks for the best contact form plugins for WordPress.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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5 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

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    • WPBeginner Support says

      There should be the option at the top of admin pages you look at or in the admin toolbar of your site to swap back :)

      Admin

  2. Cynthia says

    Humm that plug-in sounds scary as he_ _. I’m just envisioning a glitch where you can’t get your admin role back, or even worse a hacker exploiting that plug-in getting into user accounts by bypassing passwords. Yikes.

    Think I’ll stick with the extra minute it takes to log in as a different user.

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