Title: Multiple Roles
Author: Christian Neumann
Published: <strong>March 12, 2015</strong>
Last modified: August 5, 2025

---

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![](https://ps.w.org/multiple-roles/assets/banner-772x250.png?rev=2334065)

This plugin **hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress**.
It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when
used with more recent versions of WordPress.

![](https://s.w.org/plugins/geopattern-icon/multiple-roles_182732.svg)

# Multiple Roles

 By [Christian Neumann](https://profiles.wordpress.org/cneumann/)

[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/multiple-roles.1.3.7.zip)

 * [Details](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/multiple-roles/#description)
 * [Reviews](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/multiple-roles/#reviews)
 *  [Installation](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/multiple-roles/#installation)
 * [Development](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/multiple-roles/#developers)

 [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/multiple-roles/)

## Description

This plugin allows you to select multiple roles for a user – something that WordPress
already supports “under the hood”, but doesn’t provide a user interface for.

User edit and Add new user screens will display a checklist of roles instead of 
the default role dropdown. The main user list screen will also display all roles
a user has.

It also supports well Multisite mode.

That’s it. No extra settings.

If you want to contribute to this plugin, feel free to check the Github repository:
https://github.com/chrneumann/multiple-roles

## Screenshots

 * [[
 * The roles checklist on Edit User screens
 * [[
 * The Users screen with the enhanced Roles column

## Installation

#### Automatic Install

 1. Log into your WordPress dashboard and go to Plugins → Add New
 2. Search for “Multiple Roles”
 3. Click “Install Now” under the Multiple Roles plugin
 4. Click “Activate Now”

#### Manual Install

 1. Download the plugin from the download button on this page
 2. Unzip the file, and upload the resulting `multiple-roles` folder to your `/wp-content/
    plugins` directory
 3. Log into your WordPress dashboard and go to Plugins
 4. Click “Activate” under the Multiple Roles plugin

## FAQ

### Who can edit users roles?

Anyone with the `promote_users` capability. By default, that means only administrators
and network administrators on multi-site.

### Can you edit your own roles?

If you’re a network administrator on a multi-site setup, yes, you can edit your 
roles in sites of that network. Otherwise, no. This is how WordPress works normally
too.

### I’m on the user edit screen – where’s the checklist of roles?

It’s underneath the default profile stuff, under the heading “Permissions”. If you
still can’t find it, you might be on your own profile page, or you might not have
the `promote_users` capability.

### Can you remove all roles from a user?

Sure. The user will still be able to log in and out, but won’t be able to access
any admin screens or see private pages. However, the user will still be able to 
see the WP Toolbar by default, which displays links to the Dashboard and Profile
screens, so clicking on those will result in seeing a permission error.

## Reviews

![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/6cfc8c01f1ea3a75ec6f7dba8f2a014ef4cca4fd63a50fb3c8772e492e472ecc?
s=60&d=retro&r=g)

### 󠀁[It is Simple and Does the Job](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/it-is-simple-and-does-the-job/)󠁿

 [Dennis Bareis](https://profiles.wordpress.org/dbareis/) July 31, 2025

Not much to say, does exactly what is says

![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/b675b281178c5d586081778ce46cfa88bbd662be2511c19627b1eafe7bbd2303?
s=60&d=retro&r=g)

### 󠀁[SIMPLE AND WORKS](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/simple-and-works-221/)󠁿

 [multmediadesigns](https://profiles.wordpress.org/multmediadesigns/) November 28,
2023

Simple and to the point. Did exactly what I needed.

![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a5c33bb9a116300d461beff09d3e2734418f3a7284c38d2a44058c2acba16551?
s=60&d=retro&r=g)

### 󠀁[Elegant, simple .. great plugin](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/elegant-simple-great-plugin/)󠁿

 [thomasprice61](https://profiles.wordpress.org/thomasprice61/) July 7, 2020

Elegant and simple .. a great plugin

![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/c874554957015d988301bf460088590e691380d1234b2c0bb804905e219fcb6e?
s=60&d=retro&r=g)

### 󠀁[Cleanest way to assign multiple roles](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cleanest-way-to-assign-multiple-roles/)󠁿

 [Old account](https://profiles.wordpress.org/dargus/) July 1, 2020

Thank you for this plugin, this is the cleanest interface to add multiple roles 
that I’ve seen. The popular User Role Editor plugin should take this as an example
of good UX.

![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/7c3f4b07d1a7b78686c16ed4c75318d3382a3fe62b5d96fd177aed4153e6eca8?
s=60&d=retro&r=g)

### 󠀁[Works perfectly every time](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/works-perfectly-every-time-4/)󠁿

 [Monique](https://profiles.wordpress.org/oddsheep/) May 18, 2018

Great plugin. Used on multiple sites now and it works perfectly every time

![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/03773b693837956d0a98c18c1ef510b8fa2f4c80d9cf81a1da7b2bdddeee78ea?
s=60&d=retro&r=g)

### 󠀁[Performance Degradation](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/performance-degradation/)󠁿

 [ssheward](https://profiles.wordpress.org/ssheward/) May 4, 2018

Installed this on my 4.9.5 site and performance was severely degraded. This was 
the first thing I disabled in order to troubleshoot and it was like night and day.
Recommend finding an alternate solution unless this issue is addressed.

 [ Read all 15 reviews ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/multiple-roles/reviews/)

## Contributors & Developers

“Multiple Roles” is open source software. The following people have contributed 
to this plugin.

Contributors

 *   [ Christian Neumann ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/cneumann/)
 *   [ Michael Dance ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/seventhsteel/)
 *   [ Florian TIAR ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/mista-flo/)

“Multiple Roles” has been translated into 8 locales. Thank you to [the translators](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/multiple-roles/contributors)
for their contributions.

[Translate “Multiple Roles” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/multiple-roles)

### Interested in development?

[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/multiple-roles/), check
out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/multiple-roles/), or 
subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/multiple-roles/)
by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/multiple-roles/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).

## Changelog

#### 1.3.6 / 1.3.7

 * 1st june 2022
 * SECURITY FIX: Validate that the user is allowed to change selected roles

#### 1.3.5

 * 27th may 2022
 * Test the plugin against WordPress 6.0
 * Fix open issues with sanitizing text

#### 1.3.4

 * 25th may 2022
 * Add new plugin maintainer: cneumann

#### 1.3.2

 * 30th june 2021
 * Test the plugin against WordPress 5.7
 * Fix the use of nonce for two functions

#### 1.3.1

 * 1st july 2020
 * Test the plugin against WordPress 5.4
 * Fix an issue when the user role could be lost because of a wrong check in the
   backend

#### 1.3.0

 * 12 april 2018
 * Use ‘promote_users’ cap instead of ‘edit_users’
 * Fixed bug preventing us from unsetting a user’s roles
 * Only remove get_editable_roles() roles on update
 * Thanks to [thomasfw](https://github.com/thomasfw/) for the contributions

#### 1.2.0

 * 21 august 2017
 * Check compatibilty with WP 4.8.1
 * Translation of roles names : thanks to [Benjamin Niess](https://profiles.wordpress.org/benjaminniess/)
 * Mutlisite enhancement : Use a WP 4.8 filter to easier edit signup user meta

#### 1.1.4

 * 23 december 2016
 * Fix fatal error in new user in single site : After adding an user, a wp_die error
   was shown “You can’t give users that role”, it was due to changes in 1.1.2
 * Workaround to handle multisite support without breaking single site features

#### 1.1.3

 * 22 december 2016
 * Fix fatal error in user update : After updating an user, a wp_die error was shown“
   You can’t give users that role”, it was due to changes in 1.1.2

#### 1.1.2

 * 21 december 2016
 * Fix bug in multisite : After adding a new user with email confirmation, the multiple
   roles were not set, so the user did not have any roles on the site

#### 1.1.1

 * 3 november 2016
 * Remove PHP closure to ensure Backward Compatibility with PHP versions < 5.3

#### 1.1

 * 24 october 2016
 * New maintainer : Florian TIAR, you’re strongly encouraged to update this plugin
 * Add support of role checkbox in new user form (admin)
 * Add Multisite support (for new user form)
 * Add i18n support (text domain, translatable strings and pot file)
 * Add some hooks (actions and filters)
 * Fix issue where some low level users could add admin users
 * Sanitize and escape all data
 * Enhance UX of the form

#### 1.0

 * 2015
 * Initial release

## Meta

 *  Version **1.3.7**
 *  Last updated **8 months ago**
 *  Active installations **5,000+**
 *  WordPress version ** 3.1 or higher **
 *  Tested up to **6.3.8**
 *  PHP version ** 5.4 or higher **
 *  Languages
 * [Chinese (Taiwan)](https://tw.wordpress.org/plugins/multiple-roles/), [English (US)](https://wordpress.org/plugins/multiple-roles/),
   [French (France)](https://fr.wordpress.org/plugins/multiple-roles/), [German](https://de.wordpress.org/plugins/multiple-roles/),
   [Portuguese (Brazil)](https://br.wordpress.org/plugins/multiple-roles/), [Russian](https://ru.wordpress.org/plugins/multiple-roles/),
   [Spanish (Chile)](https://cl.wordpress.org/plugins/multiple-roles/), [Spanish (Spain)](https://es.wordpress.org/plugins/multiple-roles/),
   and [Ukrainian](https://uk.wordpress.org/plugins/multiple-roles/).
 *  [Translate into your language](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/multiple-roles)
 * Tags
 * [multiple roles](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/multiple-roles/)[user roles](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/tags/user-roles/)
 *  [Advanced View](https://pcd.wordpress.org/plugins/multiple-roles/advanced/)

## Ratings

 4.7 out of 5 stars.

 *  [  14 5-star reviews     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/multiple-roles/reviews/?filter=5)
 *  [  0 4-star reviews     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/multiple-roles/reviews/?filter=4)
 *  [  0 3-star reviews     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/multiple-roles/reviews/?filter=3)
 *  [  0 2-star reviews     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/multiple-roles/reviews/?filter=2)
 *  [  1 1-star review     ](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/multiple-roles/reviews/?filter=1)

[Add my review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/multiple-roles/reviews/#new-post)

[See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/multiple-roles/reviews/)

## Contributors

 *   [ Christian Neumann ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/cneumann/)
 *   [ Michael Dance ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/seventhsteel/)
 *   [ Florian TIAR ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/mista-flo/)

## Support

Got something to say? Need help?

 [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/multiple-roles/)

## Donate

Would you like to support the advancement of this plugin?

 [ Donate to this plugin ](https://paypal.me/musendisco)