Have you ever wanted to change the author of a post on your WordPress site?
Most themes give you the option to display the author, and this is a great feature to use if your blog has or might start having multiple contributors. It gives your readers another way to sort your posts, as by clicking the author’s name they can see all the posts they’ve written.
[Tweet “Ever need to change the author of a post on your WordPress site? It’s easy & I’ll show you how.”]
By default, the author of a post will be the user who’s created it.
But there are times when you’d want to change that. Like, if you’re uploading a post on behalf of someone else. As a designer, I do this a lot, but obviously, my clients should be listed as the author not me.
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There are two ways to change the post’s author – let’s take a look at both.
1. Change the author from within the Add/Edit Post screen
To assign the post to another user while you’re creating or editing it, the first thing to do is show the author selection.
Click on ‘Screen Options’ at the top right of your screen. You’ll see a whole bunch of options that you can show or hide.
Check the box beside ‘Author’ and then scroll down the screen. (Note that your Screen Options will look slightly different to this, as some themes and plugins will add extra options here.)
Near the bottom you’ll see a new Author option panel. From the drop-down menu simply choose the correct author for the post, then click the ‘Publish/Update’ button at the top of the screen to save your changes.
[Tweet “How to change the post author in WordPress (it’s super-simple + quick!)”]
2. Change the author from the All Posts screen
This way is much better if you have several posts to change as you can do them all at once. And I do love a time-saving tip!
Check the box beside each post you want to change, then select ‘Edit’ from the ‘Bulk Actions’ menu at the top or bottom of the screen. Now click ‘Apply’.
You’ve got a few options you can quickly edit. In the Author box choose the user you’re assigning the posts to, then click the ‘Update’ button.
And you’re done! Much quicker than doing them all individually.
Bonus tip: How to change the way your name is displayed
If you don’t want to change a post’s author completely, and just want to change the way your name is displayed, that’s super-simple too.
In the WordPress dashboard, click on ‘Your Profile’ from the Users menu.
On this screen you’ll see your username plus options to enter your full name and a nickname. Add all your details and then from the ‘Display name as’ dropdown, simply choose the way you want your name to be shown.
For example, my name is currently shown just as ‘Fiona’, but I could change that to show my full name.
Click ‘Save’ at the bottom of your screen when you’re done editing.
Be security conscious
When you’re doing this, don’t set it to display your username. If you do, you’ll be handing out half of your login details and nasty people could take advantage of this to try to hack into your site. So help keep your site secure and choose a different option!
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I hope you’ve found this quick tip useful. For more WordPress tips be sure to join my mailing list to get weekly actionable tips and tricks straight into your inbox.
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