A writer has stopped working with you, or an old staff account is still sitting in the Users list, and you want it gone. What stops you is the thought of everything that person created going with it: the blog posts, and perhaps the service pages they built years ago.
Nothing goes, as long as you answer one question correctly. When you delete a user in WordPress, the site stops and asks what to do with that person’s content, and one of the two answers keeps everything. Below is that screen, what WordPress actually counts as their content, and the cases where deleting is not the best move at all.
Before you delete: two quick checks
Take a backup. Deleting a user cannot be undone from the dashboard. If anything goes wrong, a recent backup is the only clean way back. If you are not sure your backups are working, our guide to backing up a WordPress website explains what a usable one looks like.
Decide who inherits the content. Usually that is the owner’s account or a current editor. Whoever you choose will appear as the author on every post that moves across, so if your theme shows author names, pick someone whose name makes sense on those posts. You can create a neutral account, such as one named after the business, purely to hold old content.
How to delete a user in WordPress and keep their posts
- Go to Users → All Users.
- Hover over the person’s name and click Delete. To remove several people at once, tick them, choose Delete from the Bulk actions dropdown and click Apply.
- WordPress opens a confirmation screen. If the user owns any content, it asks: What should be done with the content owned by this user?
- Choose Attribute all content to another user.
- Pick the new owner from the dropdown next to it.
- Click Confirm Deletion.
Their posts, pages and other items now belong to the person you chose, with the same dates, the same addresses and the same published status. The one public change is the author name, covered further down.
If the confirmation screen says the user does not have any content, there is no choice to make and you can simply confirm. And you will notice that you cannot delete your own account from this list, which is deliberate.
What counts as “their content”
WordPress decides ownership by the author field stored with each item. When you reassign, every item that names this person as author moves across, including:
- published, draft, scheduled and private posts and pages
- media files they uploaded, which are items in the Media Library with an author too
- entries from plugins that store content as their own post types, such as some portfolio, event or product plugins
Things that do not use the author field are not touched either way. Comments they left keep their text. Form entries, orders and plugin settings are stored differently, so they are not “content owned by this user” in WordPress’s sense.
If you pick “Delete all content” by mistake
This option reaches further than blog posts, and not everything it removes goes to the Trash:
- Posts and pages are moved to the Trash rather than erased, as long as your site uses the Trash, which it does by default. Go to Posts or Pages, click the Trash link above the list and restore them. Trashed items are removed for good after 30 days by default, so do it soon. The guide to restoring a page from the Trash has the details.
- Media files they uploaded are usually deleted permanently, because the Media Library does not use the Trash unless that has been switched on. Images in other people’s posts can break if this person uploaded them.
- Plugin content types may also be deleted permanently, depending on how the plugin set them up.
Restored posts still point to an author who no longer exists, so edit them and set a current author. For lost media, the realistic fix is restoring from the backup you took before you started.
When changing the role is better than deleting
Deleting is final. Sometimes you only want to take away someone’s power, for example a seasonal worker who returns every year, or a freelancer you may hire again.
Open their profile, change Role to Subscriber, or to — No role for this site — if you want them to have no access at all, and save. Then use Send Reset Link or Set New Password on the same screen so any password they knew stops working. Their posts stay exactly as they are, with their name still on them.
Keeping the name matters on some sites. If a guest expert wrote articles under their own name, reassigning those posts to the owner changes who appears to have written them. That may be inaccurate, and it can confuse readers who came for that person. In that case a powerless account is the honest choice.
Authors with a public profile
Many themes link each author’s name to an archive page listing all their posts. After you delete a user, that archive address stops working and shows a “not found” page, because there is no longer an author to list.
- If the archive was never linked from anywhere important, you can let it go.
- If it had visitors, or other sites linked to it, redirect it to the new author’s archive or to your blog page. The post on creating a 301 redirect explains how.
- Check any author box or “About the author” section your theme shows. After reassignment it will display the new owner’s biography on the old posts, so make sure that text reads sensibly.
What else the person may have owned
An account is sometimes more than a name on posts. Before you delete, look for these, because they can stop working quietly afterwards:
- Connected services. Some plugins connect to an outside service through one particular user. Jetpack, for example, has a connection owner. If that is the person you are deleting, move the connection to another administrator first.
- Notification emails. Contact forms often send enquiries to a named person. If their address is in a form’s notification settings, change it, or enquiries keep going to someone who left.
- Scheduled posts. These move to the new owner and still publish on time, but check they are still wanted.
- Application passwords. Any app or integration that connected using this person’s account stops working the moment the account is deleted, because those passwords are deleted with it.
Deleting the WordPress account is one item on a longer list when an employee leaves. Hosting, email, analytics and shared passwords are covered in the checklist for removing access when someone leaves. For the wider picture of accounts and roles, see the section on managing users in WordPress, and for the rest of running the site, the beginner’s guide to running WordPress.
Frequently asked questions
Can I undo deleting a user in WordPress?
Not from the dashboard. The account is removed completely, along with its profile, password and application passwords. You can create a new account with the same email address, but it is a new user with a new ID. If you need the original back, restoring a backup taken before the deletion is the only way.
Will reassigning posts change their URLs or dates?
No. Reassigning only changes the author field. Each post keeps its address, publish date, categories, comments and SEO settings. The only visible difference is the author name, and the author archive link if your theme displays one.
Can I reassign content to an account that is being deleted at the same time?
No. When you bulk delete several users, the dropdown only offers accounts that will remain. Make sure the person who will inherit the content is not in the batch. If you need a new neutral account to hold old posts, create it before you start deleting.
What happens to the comments a deleted user wrote?
Their comments stay on the posts with their name and text. They are simply no longer linked to an account. If you want those comments removed as well, delete them from the Comments screen separately.
A long list of old accounts is slow to sort through on your own. Our WordPress support service can help you work out who owns what before anything is deleted, with a backup taken first.
Next in this series: Forgot It? How to Reset Your WordPress Password
