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WPBeginner» Blog» Plugins» How to Restrict Authors to Specific Category in WordPress

How to Restrict Authors to Specific Category in WordPress

Last updated on December 31st, 2020 by Editorial Staff
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How to Restrict Authors to Specific Category in WordPress

Do you want to restrict an author’s ability to only post in specific categories of your WordPress site?

If you’re running a multi-author blog, then it can be helpful to limit author’s ability to only post on a selected category or sections of your site.

In this article, we’ll show you how to restrict authors to a specific category in WordPress.

How to restrict authors to specific category in WordPress

Why Restrict Authors to a Specific Category?

If you have multiple people writing for your WordPress blog, then there is a chance that they may not select the appropriate category.

By restricting authors to specific categories, you can limit the categories they can select. You can even assign an author to post in just one category.

This not only helps them focus on their writing strengths, but it can also prevent content from being posted in the wrong category.

Overall, using categories properly can be very beneficial to your website’s SEO ranking as well.

How to Restrict Authors to a Specific Category in WordPress

The easiest way to do this is by using the Restricted Authors plugin. For more details, see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After you’ve activated the plugin, go to Users » All Users and then click on ‘Edit’ for the user profile you want to restrict.

WordPress users dashboard

On their profile page, you’ll need to scroll to the bottom. You will see a section where you can select categories that you want to restrict the user’s ability to post to. In the first box, whatever category you select is what they’ll be able to use.

In the field below, you can select a default category for that specific user.

Restrict user settings

Once you’re done, click the ‘Update User’ button and you’re all done.

Now, when the author goes in the WordPress content editor to create a post, they’ll see the following on their sidebar:

Restrict categories in WordPress editor

As you can see, there are no other categories that they can select due to the plugin settings we’re using.

If you want to restrict their WordPress user role to specific sections or custom post types, then you can use the Members plugin to further customize the permissions.

We hope this helped you learn how you can restrict authors to a specific category in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to create a WordPress membership site, and our expert pick of the best WordPress plugins for all websites.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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17 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. Morshed Alam Suman says:
    Jun 25, 2019 at 7:14 am

    The plugin is closed now.

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jun 26, 2019 at 10:44 am

      Thank you for letting us know about this, we’ll be sure to look into updating the article :)

      Reply
  2. Yashar says:
    Jan 5, 2019 at 7:31 am

    please do not promote a plugin that is banned due to security issues

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jan 8, 2019 at 10:13 am

      Thank you for letting us know about this, we will be sure to look into an alternative

      Reply
  3. abay says:
    Apr 19, 2018 at 7:22 am

    how to restrict the comment to author user

    Reply
  4. Felipe says:
    Apr 4, 2017 at 10:39 am

    Short and useful. Thanks.

    Reply
  5. Schalk says:
    Jan 21, 2015 at 5:29 am

    Is it possible to us this plugin somehow, to limit posting to a category of a custom post type?

    This is the plugin I use in which i want to limit various authors to their own categories.

    https://wordpress.org/plugins/scheduled-announcements-widget/

    Reply
    • bb says:
      Mar 21, 2015 at 9:01 am

      it’s wrong

      Reply
  6. Ebbin Jose says:
    Jan 9, 2015 at 5:13 pm

    How to restrict a role to two specific categories?

    Reply
    • Travis Pflanz says:
      Jan 28, 2015 at 2:09 pm

      It looks like Restrict Categories does what you need – https://wordpress.org/plugins/restrict-categories/

      Reply
  7. WPBeginner Staff says:
    Apr 22, 2014 at 4:54 pm

    Apparantely, the plugin does not support this feature at the moment.

    Reply
  8. Ed says:
    Apr 21, 2014 at 9:57 pm

    how about the author to two or three specific cats?

    Reply
  9. Umar Hashim says:
    Apr 15, 2014 at 10:10 pm

    how to make published posts editable by allowed authors but need to be approved by administrator?

    Custom Post Type = Employee
    Employee A
    Employee B

    Author A assigns to Employee A Post
    Author B assigns to Employee B Post

    Both posts are already published (Employee A and Employee B)
    Author A updates Employee A Post, nothing changed with online version but post is saved as pending review, email sent to administrator, who review changes and allow publish or discard changes.

    can this be doable with Edit Flow?

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Apr 16, 2014 at 9:36 am

      You can create a custom user role with these capabilities see how to add or remove capabilities to user roles in WordPress.

      Reply
      • Umar Hashim says:
        Apr 18, 2014 at 12:40 pm

        i have created the custom user role and i assign him edit published posts, but questions is how to make published post enable to be edited but not published again until admin review changes and allow to publish post.

        like Employee A page already published and online for viewers.. Author A assigns to Employee A page.. Author A do changes to Employee A page, now changes don’t get publish but email sent to administrator that changes to Employee A page has been made by Author A.
        administrator either approves changes or discard changes. on approval Employee A page online version updated for visitors.

        Reply
        • WPBeginner Support says:
          Apr 18, 2014 at 10:10 pm

          If you are using the plugin we mentioned then you need to edit the user role and uncheck the Publish capability from that particular user role.

        • Umar Hashim says:
          Apr 28, 2014 at 9:17 pm

          I managed to get it in working.

          i used “Capability Manager Enhanced” plugin along with “Revisionary” Plugin.

          now published posts are submitted for review before going to publish online.

          but now issue is we are using Custom Fields by using “Advance Custom Fields” plugin on Custom Post Type “Employee”, in Revisionary preview screen, we are not able to see those Custom Fields but only WordPress default Editor.

          Is it possible to get Custom Fields Updates in Preview Comparision?

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