The WP Admin dashboard is where you can manage your website settings, content and more. The WP Admin dashboard is also known as /wp-admin or the classic WordPress dashboard. Many online tutorials display the WP Admin dashboard, as opposed to the Default View built into WordPress.com.
WordPress.com offers best-in-class hosting and two different dashboards you can use, depending on which one you prefer:
- The WordPress.com default dashboard
- WP-Admin (considered the classic WordPress dashboard)
While you can do almost everything in the default dashboard, you can also switch to WP Admin if that is your preference. This guide will show you how to access WP Admin.
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In this guide
The WP-Admin dashboard is also known as /wp-admin or the classic WordPress dashboard. You will often see images of this dashboard when looking at WordPress tutorials online — usually with a black left sidebar. Some folks fondly called this “the admin area.” While you can do almost everything in the WordPress.com default dashboard, you can use WP Admin if that is your preference.
The WordPress.com default dashboard and WP-Admin are connected. Therefore, any changes you make on one dashboard will be reflected on the other.
When you first log in to your WordPress.com account, you will see the default WordPress.com dashboard. To access the WP Admin dashboard:
- Log into WordPress.com.
- Navigate to “My Home”.
- Scroll lower on the page and look for the “Quick links” section on the right.
- Click on the “WP Admin Dashboard” option.
You can also access WP Admin by adding /wp-admin to the end of your website URL, such as yourgroovysite.wordpress.com/wp-admin or yourgroovydomain.com/wp-admin.
This section of the guide applies to sites with the WordPress.com Creator and Entrepreneur plans, and the legacy Pro plan. For sites on the free, Starter, and Explorer plans, upgrade your plan to access this feature.
You can set your website to use WP Admin (classic interface) whenever you log into your site’s dashboard. This setting will also change the admin bar (the black bar that appears at the top of the screen while you’re logged in.)
To set the style for the admin interface, take the following steps:
- Log into your WordPress.com dashboard.
- Navigate to Settings → General.
- Scroll down to the “Admin Interface Style” section.
- Choose between:
- Classic style: The classic WP-Admin WordPress interface.
- Default style: The redesigned WordPress.com experience.
- Click the “Save Changes” button.
After making a selection, your admin interface style will update automatically in a few seconds.
To view the classic WP Admin version of any individual screen, follow these steps:
- Log into your WordPress.com dashboard.
- Visit the specific dashboard page you want to change the view for.
- Click the “View” tab at the top of yoru screen.
- Select “Classic view“:
To switch from WP Admin (Classic view) to the “Default view”, follow these steps:
- Log into your WordPress.com dashboard.
- Visit the specific dashboard page you want to change the view for.
- Click the “View” tab at the top of yoru screen.
- Select “Default view“:
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If you do not have the View tab, check to make sure “WordPress.com Log In” is set to the ON position at Settings → Security → WordPress.com Log In.
Classic view is available for:
When you switch to Classic view, it will not change back to the Default view unless you intentionally return to this view using the View tab.
You can control the view on a screen-by-screen basis. For example, switching to Classic view on Pages will not change the view on the Posts screen. Switching to Classic view on Posts is a separate action.
The WP Admin dashboard provides quick links to useful features. There are a few methods to access to the WP Admin dashboard:
- Visit “My Home” and select WP Admin from the Quick Links menu
- Append your public site address with
/wp-admin - Set your default admin interface style to “Classic style” and visit “Dashboard”
- Site Health Status displays information about your WordPress configuration and items that may need your attention. This feature is included in plugin-enabled sites.
- At a Glance displays a summary of the content on your site and identifies which theme you are using.
- Activity shows the upcoming scheduled posts, recently published posts, and the most recent comments on your posts and allows you to moderate them.
- Quick Draft lets you quickly create a new post and save it as a draft. It also displays links to the three most recent draft posts you’ve started. You can click on those links to edit the draft posts or access them by navigating to Posts → All Posts → Drafts.
- WordPress Events and News lets you see upcoming WordPress events. Set your location to get events specific to your region.
Click on any of the three arrows next to the title in any box to move the current box element up, down, or toggle to shut it. You can also click and drag any boxes to move them into a different position.
All of the core pages in WP Admin include a screen options setting. This setting allows you to customize the screen elements for a specific WP Admin page.
For example, in WP Admin Dashboards Screen Options you can turn on and off which cards appear on the dashboard.
In Pages and Posts (and other content types), you can set the columns that appear, including the Thumbnail, Author, Stats, Comments, Likes and publish date. You can also set the pagination (number of items per page) and view mode. This is especially useful if you’re viewing your tools from a smaller screen and want to be able to see specific elements at a glance.
