Trusted WordPress tutorials, when you need them most.
Beginner’s Guide to WordPress
WPB Cup
25 Million+
Websites using our plugins
16+
Years of WordPress experience
3000+
WordPress tutorials
by experts

How to Change or Remove ‘Howdy Admin’ in WordPress (Easy Way)

Editorial Note: We earn a commission from partner links on WPBeginner. Commissions do not affect our editors' opinions or evaluations. Learn more about Editorial Process.

Do you want to change or remove the ‘Howdy’ greeting in the WordPress admin bar?

Many people never use the word “howdy” in real life. You might like to change it to a greeting that sounds more familiar.

In this article, we’ll show you how to change or remove ‘Howdy Admin’ with 3 easy solutions.

How to Change or Remove Howdy Admin in WordPress

Why Change or Remove ‘Howdy Admin’?

Whenever a user logs into the dashboard of their WordPress website, they are greeted by the word ‘Howdy’ followed by their display name.

For example, if John Smith logged in, then he’d see the words ‘Howdy, John Smith’ near the top right of the screen.

Howdy, John Smith

That greeting might not sound natural to some users. ‘Howdy’ is short for ‘How do you do?’, but many English speakers never use the word. It may sound out of place, outdated, or even a bit annoying.

Luckily, you can change the greeting to something that sounds more familiar, like Welcome, Hello, Hey, or Hi. You can also leave it out entirely, so you’ll just see the user’s display name.

Changing or removing ‘Howdy Admin’ is very simple, so you can either watch the video below or scroll down if you prefer written instructions.

Video Tutorial

Subscribe to WPBeginner

Change or Remove ‘Howdy Admin’ Using WPCode (Recommended)

You can change or remove ‘Howdy Admin’ without using a plugin by adding a custom code snippet to your theme’s functions.php file.

We don’t recommend editing your theme’s PHP files to inexperienced users, because even a small mistake could break your website.

To make sure that doesn’t happen, you can use WPCode to change or remove ‘Howdy Admin’ from your site. Not only is WPCode the most powerful code snippet plugin available for WordPress, but it also comes with a huge library of pre-made code snippets.

You’ll need to download and install the free WPCode plugin before you get started. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you just need to head to Code Snippets » Library and type ‘howdy’ into the search bar. A pre-made code snippet called ‘Change Howdy Admin in Admin Bar’ will appear as a result.

Simply hover over the snippet and click on ‘Use snippet’ to add it to your site.

Select the Howdy snippet in WPCode

You will then be taken to the ‘Edit Snippet’ page. Because you’re using a code snippet from the WPCode library, all of the options and settings are filled out for you.

All you need to do is click the toggle to ‘Active’ and then press the ‘Update’ button. You’ll immediately see a change in the upper-right of the screen where the ‘Howdy Admin’ has changed to ‘Welcome Admin.’

Activate the snippet to replace Howdy Admin

To customize the greeting, simply change word in single quotes from ‘Howdy’ to whatever you want it to say. For example, you can change $new_howdy = 'Welcome,'; to $new_howdy = 'Hi there,'; to change the message to “Hi there, Admin.”

You can also choose to remove the greeting entirely, which will only show the username in the corner. To do this, delete everything between the single quotes so the line simply reads $new_howdy = '';.

Completely removing howdy

If you’d like to return to the ‘Howdy’ greeting, then just toggle the switch back to ‘Inactive’ and click ‘Update’ once again.

We hope this article helped you learn how to customize the greeting in the WordPress backend. Next, see our guide on how to choose the best WordPress hosting, or check out our list of must-have WordPress plugins to grow your website.

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.

Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission. See how WPBeginner is funded, why it matters, and how you can support us. Here's our editorial process.

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.

The Ultimate WordPress Toolkit

Get FREE access to our toolkit - a collection of WordPress related products and resources that every professional should have!

Reader Interactions

27 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
    Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
    You can get more details about the contest from here.
    Start sharing your thoughts below to stand a chance to win!

  2. Moinuddin Waheed says

    Thanks for this guide on removing howdy message from the dashboard.
    I had to handover the dashboard to my client and I thought of changing this message because he may not be aware of hwody message.
    So, I wanted to create personalised greeting.
    However, It never felt alien to me to use howdy.

  3. Jiří Vaněk says

    Before reading this article, as a non-native speaker, even though I speak English relatively well, it never occurred to me what the word ‘howdy’ actually means. And that’s while I use WordPress on a daily basis.

  4. simon says

    hello can anyone help me?
    I want to translate a string in wordpress theme
    //
    if($mt_o[‘mt_rewrite_doctor_name’]!=””) { $mt_cpt_doctors_name = $mt_o[‘mt_rewrite_doctor_name’]; } else { $mt_cpt_doctors_name = “Staff'”;}
    //
    i translated such :
    if($mt_o[‘mt_rewrite_doctor_name’]!=””) { $mt_cpt_doctors_name = $mt_o[‘mt_rewrite_doctor_name’]; } else { $mt_cpt_doctors_name = __(‘Staff’,’madza_translate’);}
    but it does not work!!!!
    can you guy help me ? plz plz

  5. Ast says

    It doesnt work,,, after I use this code, wordpress (Version 4.2.2) admin panel cant load,, should remove this code..

  6. David Labbe says

    There is a much easier way to do this by using the old menu node values:

    function np_replace_howdy($wp_admin_bar){

    //New text to replace Howdy
    $new_text = ‘Welcome’;

    //Call up the ‘my-account’ menu node for current values.
    $my_account = $wp_admin_bar->get_node(‘my-account’);

    //Replace the ‘Howdy’ with new text with string replace
    $new_title = str_replace(‘Howdy’, $new_text, $my_account->title);

    //Rebuild the menu using the old node values and the new title.
    $wp_admin_bar->add_menu(array(
    ‘id’ => $my_account->id,
    ‘parent’ => $my_account->parent,
    ‘title’ => $new_title,
    ‘href’ => $my_account->href,
    ‘group’ => $my_account->group,
    ‘meta’ => array(
    ‘class’ => $my_account->meta[‘class’],
    ‘title’ => $my_account->meta[‘title’],
    ),
    ));
    }

    add_action(‘admin_bar_menu’, ‘np_replace_howdy’, 999);

    See my gist:

    https://gist.github.com/Davidlab/8460a3cec27cb585d95c

  7. Gauranga says

    I tried but it didn’t work.. kept saying error and when tried to repair it, my WordPress admin panel couldn’t load any more :-( I had to switch back to my back up functions.php file (fortunately i had it). Perhaps i made a mistake but it would be nice to have something that is really copy and paste for neophytes like myself with clear instructions instead of expecting everyone to know something else that may be common sense for those who know codes. Gauranga.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Yes, you can. It may be a little complicated but do able. You will need to create an array in PHP with greetings in different languages. Then randomly pick a string from the array and use it with the rest of the code above.

      Admin

  8. iTechRevo says

    Hey in the admin panel howdy can be edited but on the front end howdy is still there and cannot be changed so what should i do to edit it?

  9. graphicagenda says

    @senlinonline: That is a great snippet! but it reverts back to the howdy for the frontend admin bar while logged in.

  10. senlinonline says

    Changing “Howdy” can actually be done quite a bit simpler than the above code. Add this to your functions.php (or functionality.php or any other file): /** CHANGE HOWDY – http://wpmu.org/daily-tip-how-to-change-the-wordpress-howdy-message-to-a-custom-welcome/ **/add_filter(‘gettext’, ‘change_howdy’, 10, 3);function change_howdy($translated, $text, $domain) { if (!is_admin() || ‘default’ != $domain) return $translated; if (false !== strpos($translated, ‘Howdy’)) return str_replace(‘Howdy’, ‘Welcome back’, $translated); return $translated;}/** END CHANGE HOWDY **/

  11. Sean 'Wordpress Guy' Vosler says

    I know, actually had a client ask me if it was made by a southern company because when I was signed it in said ‘howdy’, had a good laugh, but def something to do if your not positive on how a client might react

  12. WPBeginner - WordPress for Beginners says

    Sean ‘WordPress Guy’ Vosler for the sake of customization? Not everyone thinks that Howdy is cool. Greg said he will be sending us a more detailed tutorial on how he added more links and such.

Leave a Reply to Jen Cancel reply

Thanks for choosing to leave a comment. Please keep in mind that all comments are moderated according to our comment policy, and your email address will NOT be published. Please Do NOT use keywords in the name field. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation.

WPBeginner Assistant
How can I help you?

By chatting, you consent to this chat being stored according to our privacy policy and your email will be added to receive weekly WordPress tutorials from WPBeginner.