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You can change post authors in just two clicks.
Even better, it doesn’t require installing any new plugins and works the same way for drafts and published posts.
However, the option to change authors may be hidden on your site.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to change post authors and get this option to show up if it’s currently hidden.
The first step is to visit the post editor.
Once there, you should see the Author select option inside the Status & visibility panel.
Use the dropdown to select a new author and update the post to save your changes.
You can also change the author via the Quick edit options in the Posts menu.
Of course, you may be reading this article in the first place because your site doesn’t display these options. Here’s how to fix that.
How to fix the missing option
If you don’t see the Author select option in your post editor, it’s because your site doesn’t have two or more users with a contributor role or higher.
Let’s break that down.
Vist the Users menu and click on the user that you want to attribute the post to.
On the user’s profile page, scroll down until you see the Role option in the Name section.
Roles are used to give users different permissions on the site. The default roles are:
- Subscriber
- Contributor
- Author
- Administrator
If you can’t assign a user as the author of a post, it’s likely because their role is set to Subscriber.
Subscribers can log in to your site, but that’s about it. This role is good if you have a membership site or private content and you want people to log in to access it.
The Contributor role allows the user to write and submit posts, while the Author role is required to actually publish content on the site. Contributors and Authors can only work on their own posts, while the Editor role enables a user to edit and publish the posts of others. Administrators are the only ones capable of installing plugins and themes.
Give this user a role of Contributor or higher to enable them as an author and click the save button at the bottom of the page.
Once you’ve made this change, the option to choose a new author will show up in the post editor right away.
Make sure to save the post after changing authors, and you’re good to go.
I hope you learned a few new things about WordPress in this tutorial.
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Thanks for reading this tutorial on how to change the author of a WordPress post, and please share it with someone else if it helped you out today.
