How to add and remove capabilities from a role in WordPress?

in WordPress on July 18, 2021

When you add user roles, you can add capabilities at the same time. But, sometimes you want to add or remove capabilities from a user role that already exists.

How to add capabilities?

To add capabilities to a role, you need to get the role first using get_role() and then add capabilities using add_cap() method.


function guest_editor_caps() {
    // Gets the simple_role role object.
    $role = get_role( 'guest_editor' );
 
    // Add a new capability.
    $role->add_cap( 'edit_others_posts', true );
}
 
// Add simple_role capabilities
// priority must be after the initial role definition.
add_action( 'init', 'guest_editor_caps', 11 );

How to remove capabilities?

All you need to do is change add_cap() method to remove_cap() method in the code above. That’s it.


function guest_editor_caps() {
    // Gets the simple_role role object.
    $role = get_role( 'guest_editor' );
 
    // Add a new capability.
    $role-> remove_cap( 'edit_others_posts', true );
}
 
// Add simple_role capabilities
// priority must be after the initial role definition.
add_action( 'init', 'guest_editor_caps', 11 );