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Easy Custom Auto Excerpt icon
Possibly abandoned Tested up to 6.5.12 #4 in archive

Easy Custom Auto Excerpt

Easy Custom Auto Excerpt is a WordPress plugin to cut/excerpt your posts displayed in home, search or archive pages. This plugin also enables you to customize the read more button text and thumbnail image. Just activate…

Active installs6K+5K+ tier
Downloads · 30d526▲ +4.4% vs prev. 30d
Rating4.5/5151 reviews
Health score48/100Fair
All-time downloads323.3KSince Mar 2013
Support resolved1 / 1100% in last 2 months
RequiresWP 3.5PHP any
Downloads · 7d136▲ +0.7% week over week
Our verdict

Use with caution

Easy Custom Auto Excerpt works, but test it on a staging site before relying on it in 2026. It runs on 6K+ sites, is rated 4.5/5 and was last updated 2 years ago, and scores 48/100 on our health check.

  • Loved by users — 4.5/5 from 151 reviews
  • No update in 2 years
  • Only tested up to WordPress 6.5 (latest is 7.1)

How does it stack up?

Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support

Daily downloads

102132Jun 28Aug 11Sep 25
Yesterday28
Daily average (1y)13
Peak day43Sep 3, 2026
Last 12 months4.9K

Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.

Rankings

Where Easy Custom Auto Excerpt stands today

WordPress.org search rankings

Live position in the plugin search, top 100
KeywordPositionCompeting pluginsCategory
archive >100 5,566 Best archive plugins →
automatic >100 10,000 Best automatic plugins →
excerpt #53 2,766 Best excerpt plugins →
home >100 4,093 Best home plugins →
search >100 10,000 Best search plugins →

Version adoption

Share of active sites per release.

  • 2.578.8%
  • 2.418.8%
  • Other2.4%

Rating breakdown

★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 from 151 reviews

  • 5★83.4%
  • 4★2.6%
  • 3★2.6%
  • 2★2.6%
  • 1★8.6%

About Easy Custom Auto Excerpt

From the official readme · v2.5.0

Description

Easy Custom Auto Excerpt is a WordPress plugin to cut/excerpt your posts displayed in home, search or archive pages. This plugin also enables you to customize the read more button text and thumbnail image. Just activate the plugin, configure some options and you’re good to go 🙂

ECAE only works on themes that call the_content() or the_excerpt() on home, search & archive pages. ECAE does not support themes that use custom functions to display excerpt, like Total, OceanWP, Writee, and Customizr.

The free version comes with everything you need to auto excerpt your content.

Live Demo | Premium Version | Documentation | Support Forum

Features:

  • Excerpt your posts based on character length.
  • Choose to excerpt your posts on home, search, archive, or custom archive pages.
  • Align text (Justify, Right, Left, Center) your text based on your preference.
  • Custom Read More text and Button.
  • Preserve Image on Excerpt.
  • Preserve real excerpt you wrote.
  • Partial Indonesian and Spanish translation.
  • Enable excerpt on RSS feed.
  • Excerpt method by 1st paragraph, 2nd paragraph, and 3rd paragraph

Premium Features:

And if you like our plugin and want to do more customization we offer the premium version with some added features:

  • Adjust Image Excerpt Position (left, right, center, float left and float right)
  • Adjust Image width and margin
  • Disable excerpt on specific post
  • 10 Read More font type and custom font size
  • 40+ Read More button themes.
  • Customize button HTML

Get the premium version: Easy Custom Auto Excerpt Premium

Plugin Demo

You can try the plugin on this URL: http://coba.tonjoostudio.com

username: coba
password: 123456

Information

if you have any questions, comment, customization request or suggestion please contact us via our support forum

Find more detail on our official site: Easy Custom Auto Excerpt Premium

Or you can find our best plugins at Tonjoo Studio

We can also modify your WordPress plugins according to your needs. Visit us : Tonjoo WordPress Developer

Install Instruction

  1. Install the plugin.
  2. In the Admin Panel, Go to Excerpt -> Settings.
  3. Customize the settings according to your need.
  4. To remove read more link, fill read more text with “-” (without quote)

Please have a time to understand how this plugin is generating excerpt :

  1. If the post has read more, then the read more will be used.
  2. If the post doesn’t have read more, then post excerpt will be used.
  3. If the post doesn’t have read more and excerpt, then it will automagically generate excerpt.

Usage Instruction

General Options

  1. Excerpt method
    • Paragraph method will cut per paragraph
    • Character method will cut per character based on characters count of Excerpt Size
    • The left options is to only show one or more paragraph from beginning of the content
  2. Excerpt Size
    • The number of characters to show based on Paragraph or Character Excerpt Method
  3. Strip shortcode
    • If you select ‘yes’ any shortcode will be eliminated from the excerpt
  4. Strip empty HTML tags
    • If you select ‘yes’ any empty HTML tags will be eliminated from the excerpt
  5. Disable on RSS Feed
    • Disable this plugin on RSS feed page
  6. Special method
    • This basically will fix some error on some themes

Content Options

  1. Text align
    • The plugin will try to align the excerpt

Display Image Options

  1. Content image
    • Option to select what image to show on the excerpt
    • “Show all images” will show all the images on the visible content
    • “Show only first image” will only show the first image on the content
    • “Use Featured Image” will show the post’s featured image
  2. Image position, Image width, and Image margin [PREMIUM VERSION]
    • This options is to configure how to show the image
    • This options is work only on Content Image: Show Only First Image and Use Featured Image
    • Below the screenshots of the some image options
  3. Image thumbnail size [PREMIUM VERSION]
    • This is an option so select what image size to show
    • This options is work only on Content Image: Use Featured Image

Excerpt location

  1. Basic settings
    • Option to determine the location to show the excerpt, i.e. blog page, front page, archive page, and search page
    • User can also select which page to enable the excerpt
  2. Advanced settings
    • This is an advanced settings of the location, which is users can select the post type or category to show on the each option, like blog page or front page

Read more button

  1. Display option
    • Normal : show readmore button, only if content length is bigger than excerpt size
    • Always Show : always show the readmore button
    • Always Hide : always hide the readmore button
  2. Read more text
    • The text to show on read more link
  3. Text after content
    • The text located right after the content, for example dots “[…]”. This element can be styled by css with selector “.ecae-dots”
  4. Inline Button
    • The plugin will try to make the read more link inline with the paragraph
  5. Readmore align
    • The plugin will try to align the read more link
  6. Button font [PREMIUM VERSION]
    • The font of read more link and the text before link
  7. Button font size [PREMIUM VERSION]
    • The font size of read more link and the text before link
  8. Text before button link
    • Text before read more link
  9. Button link type [SEPARATED PREMIUM VERSION]
    • The style of read more link
      > Notes: both Read more text and Text before link can be translated with WPML string translation. After you save the ECAE option, go to the WPML String Translation and then search for domain name “easy-custom-auto-excerpt”. The text is the one named “Readmore text” and “Before readmore text” (see the attached image below).

Button Shortcode

You can manually add the button by put this shortcode to your post: [ecae_button] Required “strip shortcode options” = No

Read More Live Preview

The preview of read more link and the text before link

Custom CSS

Allow user to add the custom css for the read more link and the text before link

License

  • Registering the license code is useful to get the regular updates of ECAE premium
  • Registering the license code will also remove the tonjoostudio ads

Translation :

  1. Bahasa Indonesia : Todi ~ @todiadiyatmo
  2. Serbian : Ogi Djuraskovic ~ firstsiteguide.com
  3. German
  4. French
  5. Spanish

Installation

  1. Both free and premium plugin must be installed to get the premium edition
  2. Free version: from your WordPress admin, add new plugin, then search for “Easy Custom Auto Excerpt” and install the one that developed by tonjoo. Or you can just download the plugin from https://wordpress.org/plugins/easy-custom-autoexcerpt/then unzip to /wp-content/plugin on your WordPress directory
  3. After the installation, there will be a notification to enter the license code of ECAE, you can ignore that or you can enter the code at that moment
  4. The option page is located on the sidebar named “Excerpt”

Frequently asked questions

It breaks my website!

The auto excerpt cannot properly cut on some elements. If it breaks your site, please use read more / post excerpt. It can be activated from screen option.

What happens if I write an excerpt for the post?

It will be used, instead of the automatically generated one.

Changelog

2.5.0

  • Fixed bug: Password-protected post content should not be shown

2.4.12

  • New license manager

2.4.11

  • Add new option to set excert font size
  • Add new option to link image inside excerpt to single post

2.4.10

  • Fixed some bugs in settings page

2.4.9

  • Fixed some minor bugs in character excerpt

2.4.8

  • Fixed bug in excerpt method character

Full changelog on WordPress.org →

Screenshots

Easy Custom Auto Excerpt in action.
Easy Custom Auto Excerpt in action.
General Options.
General Options.
Advanced Excerpt Location Options.
Advanced Excerpt Location Options.
Read More Button Options.
Read More Button Options.

For developers

Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.

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FAQ

Easy Custom Auto Excerpt: quick answers

Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.

Live data from WordPress.org · checked Sep 26, 2026

Is Easy Custom Auto Excerpt free?

Yes. Easy Custom Auto Excerpt is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.

Is Easy Custom Auto Excerpt safe to use in 2026?

Easy Custom Auto Excerpt works, but test it on a staging site before relying on it in 2026. It runs on 6K+ sites, is rated 4.5/5 and was last updated 2 years ago, and scores 48/100 on our health check.

How many websites use Easy Custom Auto Excerpt?

Easy Custom Auto Excerpt is active on 6K+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 323,259 times since it launched in March 2013. It was downloaded 526 times in the last 30 days.

Does Easy Custom Auto Excerpt work with WordPress 7.1?

Easy Custom Auto Excerpt is officially tested up to WordPress 6.5.12, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.

When was Easy Custom Auto Excerpt last updated?

The latest version, 2.5.0, was released on April 16, 2024 (2 years ago).

Who makes Easy Custom Auto Excerpt?

Easy Custom Auto Excerpt is developed and maintained by todiadiyatmo.

What are the best alternatives to Easy Custom Auto Excerpt?

The most popular alternatives to Easy Custom Auto Excerpt are Jetpack VaultPress (10K+ installs), Zippy (8K+ installs) and Posts List (7K+ installs).

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