WordPress Users

Last updated October 11, 2024

Kinsta’s user roles allow you to manage what users have access to within MyKinsta. WordPress user roles allow you to manage what users can do on your WordPress site, such as adding new posts or pages, moderating comments, installing plugins, etc. For a full guide on how WordPress user roles and capabilities work, refer to The Ultimate Guide to WordPress User Roles and Capabilities.

User roles and capabilities

Capabilities are the actions that users can perform within WordPress, such as:

Read posts (read)
Write and edit posts (edit_posts)
Publish posts (publish_posts)
Install plugins (install_plugins)
Delete themes (delete_themes)
Create users (create_users)
Moderate comments (moderate_comments)

Roles are a predefined set of capabilities; when you add a new user to WordPress, you must assign them to a role. By default, WordPress includes 5 predefined user roles:

Administrator: This is the highest level of access and allows users to perform actions such as, create and delete users, reset passwords, install and manage themes and plugins.
Editor: This role is for users who manage the content of your site, it allows users to perform actions such as, create, modify, publish, and delete posts and pages.
Author: Users assigned to this role can create, edit, and publish posts, upload media files, and delete their own posts. They cannot create new pages or delete other users’ posts.
Contributor: Users assigned to this role can create draft posts and delete their own drafts, but they cannot publish posts.
Subscriber: This is the lowest level of access and allows users to manage their WordPress profile and read all of the posts on your site.

For a full list of roles and capabilities, refer to the WordPress Roles and Capabilities page.

Add a user

Add a user in WP Admin

Open WP Admin from MyKinsta, click WordPress Sites > sitename > Info > Open WP Admin.
Within WP Admin, click Users > Add New User, complete the fields as required, choose a user Role, and click Add New User.
Add a new WordPress user in WP Admin.

Add a user in phpMyAdmin

This method requires directly editing your WordPress site’s database, so we only recommend it if you are comfortable working with phpMyAdmin. We also recommend backing up your database before making any changes.

Open phpMyAdmin from MyKinsta, click WordPress Sites > sitename > Info, within Database access, click Open phpMyAdmin, use your Database username and Database password from MyKinsta to log in.
Within phpMyAdmin, click your sitename and then click the wp_users table.
Select the wp_users table within phpMyAdmin.

Click SQL and enter the following command, replacing the VALUES with the new user details:

INSERT INTO `wp_users` (`user_login`, `user_pass`, `user_nicename`, `user_email`, `user_status`) VALUES ('your username', MD5('your password'), 'your firstname & your lastname', 'your email', '0')

Click Go, click back to the SQL tab, and enter the following commands; this gives the user administrator privileges. You can change this after the user is created within WP Admin:

INSERT INTO `wp_usermeta` (`umeta_id`, `user_id`, `meta_key`, `meta_value`) VALUES (NULL, (Select max(id) FROM wp_users), 'wp_capabilities', 'a:1:{s:13:"administrator";s:1:"1";}');

INSERT INTO `wp_usermeta` (`umeta_id`, `user_id`, `meta_key`, `meta_value`) VALUES (NULL, (Select max(id) FROM wp_users), 'wp_user_level', '10');

Add a user in WP-CLI

This method requires directly editing your WordPress site’s database, so we recommend it only if you are comfortable working with the command line. We also recommend backing up your database before making any changes.

Connect to your server with SSH and navigate to the public directory:
```
cd public
```
Run the following command, replacing the $username and $emailaddress with the new user details and $role with the role you want to assign the new user to, for example, administrator:
```
wp user create $username $emailaddress -- role=$role
```
For example:
```
wp user create newuser [email protected] -- role=administrator
```
When the command completes it returns a password for the new user.

Manage users

When you add users, they are stored in your WordPress database. A user with administrator access can edit all of the user fields within WP Admin, with the exception of the username. You can delete a user and create a new one to change the username, or if you want to edit the username, you must do this directly within the database with phpMyAdmin.

Manage a user in WP Admin

Open WP Admin from MyKinsta, click WordPress Sites > sitename > Info > Open WP Admin.
Within WP Admin, click Users, hover over the user you want to edit, and click Edit.

Edit a WordPress user in WP Admin.

Manage a user in phpMyAdmin

Open phpMyAdmin from MyKinsta, click WordPress Sites > sitename > Info; within Database access, click Open phpMyAdmin, and use your Database username and Database password from MyKinsta to log in.
Within phpMyAdmin, click your sitename and then click the wp_users table.
Select the wp_users table within phpMyAdmin.
Click Edit on the user you want to change, or double-click the field you want to change.
Edit a user within the wp_users table in phpMyAdmin.

Manage a user in WP-CLI

Connect to your server with SSH and navigate to the public directory:
```
cd public
```
Run the following command, replacing $user with the username, $field with the field you want to update, $value with the new data you want to enter:
```
wp user update $user -—$field=$value
```
For example, to replace the email on the Kinsta user with [email protected], you would use the following:
```
wp user update Kinsta -—[email protected]
```

Delete a user

Delete a user in WP Admin

Open WP Admin from MyKinsta, click WordPress Sites > sitename > Info > Open WP Admin.
Within WP Admin, click Users, hover over the user you want to remove, and click Delete.

Delete a WordPress user in WP Admin.

Delete a user in phpMyAdmin

Open phpMyAdmin from MyKinsta, click WordPress Sites > sitename > Info; within Database access, click Open phpMyAdmin, and use your Database username and Database password from MyKinsta to log in.
Within phpMyAdmin, click your sitename and then click the wp_users table.
Select the wp_users table within phpMyAdmin.
Click Delete on the user you want to remove.
Delete a user within the wp_users table in phpMyAdmin.

Delete a user in WP-CLI

Connect to your server with SSH and navigate to the public directory:
```
cd public
```
Run the following command, replacing $username with the username you want to delete:
```
wp user delete $username
```
This also deletes all of their posts. If you want to remove the user and reassign the posts to another user, use the following command, replacing $username with the username you want to delete and $anotherusername with the username you want to assign the posts to:
```
wp user delete $username --reassign=$anotherusername
```