WordPress admin bar, also known as the WordPress Toolbar, is a great way to get things done pretty quickly without having to follow the harder way to accomplish things on WordPress. For example, creating a new post or editing the current one need not be done via the backend of the website if you have the WordPress admin bar active and visible. This saves a lot of time for anyone who works with their website on a daily basis. So, if you do not mind that extra 32 pixels consumed by the admin bar, it would be a great productivity hack on a WordPress website.
However, not everyone likes everything. Especially if the website needs tweaks or design changes once in a while which might be clutter to keep the admin bar at the top. Or if you like the traditional way of doing things, there is no need to keep the admin bar active on the website. In that case, you can follow the steps in this guide to disable the admin bar on your WordPress website.
What is the WordPress Admin Bar?
The WordPress Admin Bar, also known as the WordPress toolbar, is a quick-access header that sticks to the top of the WordPress website. In the WordPress admin bar, a lot of useful functionalities such as user profile notifications and other plugin features will be listed. You can also add custom links to the WordPress admin bar.
The primary use of the WordPress admin bar is to provide a quick way for WordPress users to easily navigate through the important functionalities of their website. In most cases, this admin bar will be only accessible by the logged-in users and will be hidden from the guest or regular visitors.
Steps to Disable WordPress ToolBar
- Open your WordPress backend.
- Navigate to Users > Your Profile.
- Uncheck the box “Show Toolbar when viewing site.”
- Click the Save Changes button at the bottom.
That’s it. From now on, the WordPress toolbar won’t be visible on your website. If you want to turn it on again, you can go to your profile page once again and simply tick the checkbox and save the changes. As simple as that.
If you are using a static page cache, disable the Admin Bar
There are several situations where the users might be aggressively catching their websites. For example, a lot of CDNs such as Cloudflare or AWS CloudFront provide functionality where the users can cache the static HTML to improve the speed of their website. In such cases, there are reports that the WordPress admin bar getting cached by the CDN and later served to other users.
Unless you have some cache-busting system or proper cache control in place, which might be beyond the understanding of a normal WordPress admin, this could ruin the user experience on your website. So in such cases, you should ensure that the Toolbar is not visible.
