How to Remove Default Author Profile Fields in WordPress

Are you looking for a way to remove fields from an author profile in WordPress?

WordPress shows standard fields in author profiles no matter which type of website you have. By removing the default fields, you can customize your site according to your needs and make the WordPress admin panel easier.

In this article, we’ll show you how to remove default author profile fields in WordPress.

When Should You Remove Default Author Profile Fields?

When you’re creating an author profile on your WordPress site, you’ll have default fields to fill out. These fields remain on any type of website, be it a blog, WooCommerce store, or membership site.

Under certain situations, you can remove these default fields from the author profile and keep only the fields that you require.

For example, if you don’t need use certain social media platforms, then removing these fields can help you make the WordPress admin panel more streamlined and user-friendly for your users and clients.

That said, let’s see how you can remove the default author profile fields in WordPress.

Removing Default Author Profile Fields

To remove default author profile fields, we’ve created simple code snippets that you can add to your WordPress theme files.

To add them to your site, you can follow our guide on how to easily add custom code snippets in WordPress.

Remove Default Social Media Fields from Author Profile

Older versions of WordPress came with AIM, Yahoo IM, and Jabber/Gtalk as the default author profile fields.

If you’re using an older version of WordPress and want to remove these social media fields, then you add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file:

add_filter('user_contactmethods', function($methods) {
    unset($methods['aim'], $methods['yim'], $methods['jabber']);

    return $methods;
}, 999);

Remove Author Profile Fields Added by Third-Party Plugins

At times, some plugins will add additional author profile fields to your website.

To stop WordPress plugins from adding custom fields to the author profile section or remove any field that they may have added, you can add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file:

add_filter('user_contactmethods', function() {
    return array();
}, 999);

Once the code is added, your author profile section will keep the default fields and won’t get cluttered with fields from other plugins.

We hope this article helped you learn how to remove default author profile fields in WordPress. You may also want to look at our guide on how to choose the best web design software and how to start an online store.

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