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Free Plugin by Janis Elsts v1.15.2

Admin Menu Editor

Lets you edit the WordPress admin menu. You can re-order, hide or rename menus, add custom menus and more.

Admin Menu Editor

The facts

Rating
4.6★ from 312
Active installs
300k+
Price
Free
Last updated
19 Aug 2026
Added
Dec 2009
Requires WP
5.9
Tested up to
WP 7.1
Requires PHP
7.4
Downloads
8,300,403

Our analysis

AI-assisted

Admin Menu Editor is a WordPress plugin that allows you to manually edit the Dashboard menu. You can reorder menus, show or hide specific items, and change permissions based on user roles. This plugin is suitable for users who want to customise their admin interface for better usability or security.

The plugin also includes features for creating custom menus, managing access to posts, and hiding plugins from certain users. It provides utility shortcodes for login/logout redirects and user information display, making it versatile for site administrators looking to enhance their WordPress experience.

Best for: This plugin suits WordPress site administrators who want to customise their admin menu and user access.

What it does well

  • Manually edit the Dashboard menu
  • Change menu titles, URLs, and icons
  • Organize menu items via drag & drop
  • Create custom menus pointing to any URL
  • Hide/show any menu or menu item

Where it falls short

  • Free version has limitations on role access
  • Default menus cannot be permanently deleted

Verdict

Admin Menu Editor provides a range of useful features for managing the WordPress admin interface. It is a practical tool for those looking to tailor their dashboard to specific needs.

From the developer

Janis Elsts's own description of Admin Menu Editor, lightly tidied.

Admin Menu Editor lets you manually edit the Dashboard menu. You can reorder the menus, show/hide specific items, change permissions, and more.

Features

  • Change menu titles, URLs, icons, CSS classes and so on.
  • Organize menu items via drag & drop.
  • Change menu permissions by setting the required capability or role.
  • Move a menu item to a different submenu.
  • Create custom menus that point to any part of the Dashboard or an external URL.
  • Hide/show any menu or menu item. A hidden menu is invisible to all users, including administrators.

The Pro version lets you set per-role menu permissions, hide a menu from everyone except a specific user, export your admin menu, drag items between menu levels, make menus open in a new window and more. Try online demo.

Additional Features

Despite the name, this plugin is not limited to just editing the admin menu. You can also:

  • Create login redirects and logout redirects.
  • Allow/deny access to specific posts based on user roles.
  • Hide plugins on the Plugins -> Installed Plugins page from other users.
  • Edit the display name, description, and other plugin details shown on the Plugins -> Installed Plugins page (e.g. for white-labelling).

Shortcodes

The plugin provides a few utility shortcodes. These are mainly intended to help with creating login/logout redirects, but you can also use them in posts and pages.

  • [ame-wp-admin] – URL of the WordPress dashboard (with a trailing slash).
  • [ame-home-url] – Site URL. Usually, this is the same as the URL in the “Site Address” field in Settings -> General.
  • [ame-user-info field="..."] – Information about the logged-in user. Parameters:
    • field – The part of user profile to display. Supported fields include: ID, user_login, display_name, locale, user_nicename, user_url, and so on.
    • placeholder – Optional. Text that will be shown if the visitor is not logged in.
    • encoding – Optional. How to encode or escape the output. This is useful if you want to use the shortcode in your own HTML or JS code. Supported values: auto (default), html, attr, js, none.

    Notes

    • If you delete any of the default menus they will reappear after saving. This is by design. To get rid of a menu for good, either hide it or change it’s access permissions.
    • In the free version, it’s not possible to give a role access to a menu item that it couldn’t see before. You can only restrict menu access further.
    • In case of emergency, you can reset the menu configuration back to the default by going to http://example.com/wp-admin/?reset_admin_menu=1 (replace example.com with your site URL). You must be logged in as an Administrator to do this.

    Read the full description on the official page →

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