Cleaning up the WordPress admin menu
Hide menu items your clients do not need, straight from your theme or a small plugin.
This guide revisits and updates an original tutorial from noiretaya.com (
log.noiretaya.com/165, /166, /178). The code has been refreshed for current versions.Remove top-level menu items
Hook into admin_menu and call remove_menu_page() with the menu slug.
add_action('admin_menu', function () {
remove_menu_page('edit-comments.php'); // Comments
remove_menu_page('tools.php'); // Tools
remove_menu_page('edit.php?post_type=page'); // Pages
}, 999);Remove sub-menu items
Use remove_submenu_page($parent_slug, $submenu_slug) for finer control.
add_action('admin_menu', function () {
remove_submenu_page('themes.php', 'theme-editor.php'); // Appearance > Editor
remove_submenu_page('options-general.php', 'options-writing.php');
}, 999);Tidy the admin bar too
add_action('wp_before_admin_bar_render', function () {
global $wp_admin_bar;
$wp_admin_bar->remove_node('wp-logo');
$wp_admin_bar->remove_node('comments');
});Good practice: gate removals by capability (e.g.
if (!current_user_can('manage_options'))) so admins keep full access while editors get a simplified screen.