Have you ever need to create temporary WordPress accounts that automatically expire after a given time? Sometimes you may need to create temporary accounts to give temporary access to the admin area. In this article, we will show you how to create a temporary login for WordPress without passwords.

Just like keeping backups of your WordPress site, managing WordPress users and keeping people out who have no business in there is all part of running your site. This guide will show you an easy way to give WordPress temporary admin access to someone without having to create a user or give them your password.

"Never forget about deleting WordPress users that only needed temporary access again." Tweet

This comes in handy when you need to give a designer or developer temporary access to your site to do work. Or if you want someone to be able to view a post that’s not yet published to get their feedback or input. Sure, you could create a whole new user with a password and set permissions accordingly. But there’s really no need to go through all that hassle.

Plus, it’s easy to forget about it and never make your way back to deleting the user or changing their permissions.

Thankfully, there’s a super easy way to do this.

How do I provide WordPress temporary access to someone?

There are several plugins that you can use to give someone admin access that will only last a short period of time. Here we’ll look at the Temporary Login without Password plugin…

First, install this plugin: Temporary Login without Password
Once you active it, hover your mouse over the Users section in the left panel of your admin dashboard and click the new Temporary Users that should be there:


Once you’re there, click the top button that says Create New, and you’ll get this:


Fill in the information in that box

Note: Email is required, the name isn’t. You can see below I created a user named “designer” and they’ll have access and admin rights for one day. After that, the login link (which you can copy from the top box or click the chain link icon to the right of the user) will no longer work.
You don’t have to remember to come back and change permissions or delete a user or anything. Though I’d recommend cleaning up this list from time to time by removing users on it.

And that’s it.

Track logins and changes on your WordPress site

If you’re going to be giving people access to your admin area, it’s a good idea to keep track of who’s logging in, when they’re logging in and what they’re doing while in there.

WP temporary login without password

Always know who logs into your site with Simple Login Log
You can track all changes made and see who made the changes (even on the go from a mobile device and RSS reader) with Simple History
Another option is to use WP Security Audit Log, depending on exactly what you want to track

"Track changes made by users on your WordPress site from anywhere with your phone or tablet!" Tweet

Once a temporary account is permanently deleted, all the content created by that user like posts or pages will show the administrator account as the author.

Do you have another way you give temporary access to your WordPress site? If so, we’d love to hear and maybe update this post with other options.