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Editorial Access Manager icon
Possibly abandoned Tested up to 4.9.33 #1 in editorial access management

Editorial Access Manager

A simple plugin to let you control who has access to what posts. By default in WordPress, we can create users and assign them to roles. Roles are automatically assigned certain capabilities. See the codex article for a…

Active installs80+10+ tier
Downloads · 30d87▲ +17.6% vs prev. 30d
Rating4.9/58 reviews
Health score37/100At risk
All-time downloads6.7KSince Jul 2014
Support resolved—No recent threads
RequiresWP 3.6PHP any
Downloads · 7d24▲ +84.6% week over week
Our verdict

Consider an alternative

Editorial Access Manager shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 80+ sites, is rated 4.9/5 and was last updated 10 years ago, and scores 37/100 on our health check.

  • Small user base (80+ active installs)
  • No update in 9 years
  • Only tested up to WordPress 4.9 (latest is 7.1)

Daily downloads

3711Jul 4Aug 17Oct 1
Yesterday4
Daily average (1y)2
Peak day15Aug 26, 2026
Last 12 months583

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

Rankings

Where Editorial Access Manager stands today

WordPress.org search rankings

Live position in the plugin search, top 100
KeywordPositionCompeting pluginsCategory
editorial access management >100 142 Best editorial access management plugins →
role management >100 2,308 Best role management plugins →
user capabilities >100 6,172 Best user capabilities plugins →
user permissions >100 4,243 Best user permissions plugins →
user roles >100 5,686 Best user roles plugins →

Version adoption

Share of active sites per release.

  • 0.3100.0%

Rating breakdown

★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 from 8 reviews

  • 5★87.5%
  • 4★12.5%
  • 3★0.00%
  • 2★0.00%
  • 1★0.00%

About Editorial Access Manager

From the official readme · v0.3.2

Description

A simple plugin to let you control who has access to what posts. By default in WordPress, we can create users
and assign them to roles. Roles are automatically assigned certain capabilities. See the codex article for a list of
Roles and Capabilities. Sometimes default roles are not enough,
and we have one-off situations. Editorial Access Manager lets you set which users or roles have access to specific
posts. Perhaps you have a user who is a Contributor, but you want them to have access to edit one specific page? This
plugin can help you.

Configuration Overview

There are no overarching settings for this plugin. Simply go to the edit post screen in the WordPress admin and
configure access settings in the “Editorial Access Manager” meta box in the sidebar.

Managing Access by Roles

In the “Editorial Access Manager” meta box, enable custom access management by “Roles”. Once enabled, the post can only be
edited by users that fall into those roles. However, no matter what, the Administrator role can always edit any post.
This if for safety reasons. You can also only use roles that have the “edit_posts” capability; therefore “Subscriber” by
default cannot be used.

Managing Access by Users

In the “Editorial Access Manager” meta box, enable custom access management by “Users”. Once enabled, the post can only be
edited by designated users. However, no matter what, any administrator can edit any post. This if for safety reasons.
You can also only use users that have the “edit_others_posts” capability; therefore “Subscriber” users by default
cannot be used.

Fork the plugin on Github

Installation

  1. Upload and activate the plugin.
  2. Browse to any post in the WordPress admin and navigate to the “Editorial Access Management” meta box in
    the sidebar.

Changelog

0.3.2

  • Only enqueue scripts and styles when editing a public post type. Props jeremyfelt

0.3.1

  • Fix bug where logged out user could edit role restricted post @tripgrass

0.3.0

0.2.0

  • Add Italian language support. Props @marcochiesi
  • Add post table column to show editorial access. Props @marcochiesi
  • Remove source file for minified CSS. Props @marcochiesi
  • Tweak capability handling. Props @marcochiesi
  • Add proper bower.json
  • Cleanup messy JavaScript
  • Remove unit testing of unnecessary WP versions

0.1.1

  • Properly revoke access, if necessary, for users that have edit_page but not edit_post.

0.1.0

  • Plugin release

Full changelog on WordPress.org →

For developers

Is this your plugin? Show off the numbers.

Add a live badge to your site, docs or GitHub README. It updates on its own — no account needed.

Active installs badge Rating badge Health score badge

FAQ

Editorial Access Manager: quick answers

Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.

Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 2, 2026

Is Editorial Access Manager free?

Yes. Editorial Access Manager is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.

Is Editorial Access Manager safe to use in 2026?

Editorial Access Manager shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 80+ sites, is rated 4.9/5 and was last updated 10 years ago, and scores 37/100 on our health check.

How many websites use Editorial Access Manager?

Editorial Access Manager is active on 80+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 6,683 times since it launched in July 2014. It was downloaded 87 times in the last 30 days.

Does Editorial Access Manager work with WordPress 7.1?

Editorial Access Manager is officially tested up to WordPress 4.9.33, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.

When was Editorial Access Manager last updated?

The latest version, 0.3.2, was released on March 18, 2017 (10 years ago).

Who makes Editorial Access Manager?

Editorial Access Manager is developed and maintained by Taylor Lovett.

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