Have you ever worked on a project which required you to customize the display of the WordPress admin panel? Well one of the first things consultants customize is the WordPress Dashboard. We showed you a quick example of how to add custom dashboard widgets in WordPress. In this article, we will show you how to remove WordPress dashboard widgets.
Note: If you ended up on this article looking for how to remove dashboard widgets just for yourself, then you should probably look at our article: How to Customize WordPress Admin Area (Dashboard) for Beginners
All you have to do is simply paste the following code in your theme’s functions.php file. Although it maybe a good idea to save this file as a plugin and make it a drop-in plugin.
function remove_dashboard_widgets() {
global $wp_meta_boxes;
unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_quick_press']);
unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_incoming_links']);
unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_right_now']);
unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_plugins']);
unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_recent_drafts']);
unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_recent_comments']);
unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_primary']);
unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['side']['core']['dashboard_secondary']);
}
add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'remove_dashboard_widgets' );
Each of the widgets listed above are pretty self-explanatory. You can keep the ones you want by simply removing them from the list. If you want to remove these widgets from all users except for admins, then just change the last line to this:
if (!current_user_can('manage_options')) {
add_action('wp_dashboard_setup', 'remove_dashboard_widgets' );
}
We hope that this article helped you remove the default dashboard widgets in WordPress.
Thanks for this!
I’ve added the new diagnosis widget to your code.
unset($wp_meta_boxes['dashboard']['normal']['core']['dashboard_site_health']);Cheers
Thanks for sharing for those looking to remove that
I never intentionally changed anything about my dashboard but when I try to go to mysite.com/wpadmin, it SETTLES on a blank white window and claims to be my dashboard in the address bar and the progress indicator on the lower-left corner of the browser window I have open(Chrome, in my case).
Help me!
For that issue, you would want to take a look at our guide here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-the-wordpress-white-screen-of-death/
The only one missing here for me is –
unset($wp_meta_boxes[‘dashboard’][‘normal’][‘core’][‘dashboard_activity’]);
At least for my case ofcourse. is that Activity window I wanted to hide from users.
Thanks for sharing another widget that can be removed
This article is in need of updating.
Thank you for informing us of this older article. We will certainly look into updating it but for the time being the method should still work.
Something similar to remove Myspace Widget from dashboard…?
Only 5 are valid now:
WP 3.8 adds an activity box. Remove it like so;
remove_meta_box( ‘dashboard_activity’, ‘dashboard’, ‘normal’);
Hello Mr Staff,
Fancy your parents calling you Editorial
Very useful site guys.
I have just tried this code on WP 3.7.1. and it still works… almost
Posted in all the above but I still have Recent Drafts showing and the first large main meta-box, no idea what this box is called. Could you perhaps post the line of code needed if possible? thanks.
Thank you !
Hey. Thanks for the article; very helpful.
One thing to fix, however: dashboard_recent_drafts is not in ‘normal’. It is in ‘side’.
It’s great to be able to disable these extras for clients.
Appreciate the help your site has provided as I learn to really control WordPress.
Very good. Thanks for sharing!
That’s funny. I made a comment on this post 3 years ago! Here’s a better way of removing unneeded dashboard widgets:
Adam, this article is about removing Dashboard widgets not the widgets on the front-end of your site. These widgets appear in the main Dashboard screen of your WordPress admin area.
Dang, you’re right. I copied the wrong link. Here’s the correct one I meant to reference:
Adam, thanks we got your point. If you look at the article, in the second paragraph we have mentioned a link to the tutorial which shows the method you pointed out. Clicking on Screen Options and hiding widgets is handy when you just want to hide widgets for yourself. The code presented in this article, will hide the widgets for all users who have access to the admin area.
@WPBeginner Support – The 2nd link I sent does not demonstrate hiding widgets with the Screen Options tab in the WordPress admin. It shows a different method, utilizing the WordPress API. Not to worry, your article has been useful.
@keithybhoy Members by Justin Tadlock: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/members/
Hi, thanks for sharing. I would like to give a user with an Editor role access to the Widgets area in the admin panel, any recommendation of which plugin to use for this?
Thanks boys.
I learn something everytime I visit..
@jpelker Unfortunately, we don’t provide custom codes like that.
@wpbeginner It’s for all users. Would you be interested in solving this and providing the code?
@jpelker If it is just for your user, you can turn it off under screen settings… If not then, you would have to look into what action he is using, and then remove that action.
How do you remove third-party widgets, i.e. Yoast’s news widget that displays when you install his SEO plugin?
@jpelker Try to wrap “admin_init” around it, this should then include third-party widgets also.
See the following code (not tested):
http://pastebin.com/3jtM8uuS
Great, thanks for clarifying!
@jengraph You are editing your theme’s functions.php file… Not the core functions.php file. Your theme will never change during the core upgrade.
I always wondered when we make these modifications, to functions, other files. What happens when we upgrade WP?? How does one remember all the modifications they made with each version?