How to remove Biography from user profile admin page

5 comments

1. There is no dedicated hook – user management is a low priority in WordPress. You have to use output buffering (yes, not nice).

   Here is a simple demonstration how this could be done:

   add_action( 'personal_options', array ( 'T5_Hide_Profile_Bio_Box', 'start' ) );
   
   /**
    * Captures the part with the biobox in an output buffer and removes it.
    */
   class T5_Hide_Profile_Bio_Box
   {
       /**
        * Called on 'personal_options'.
        *
        * @return void
        */
       public static function start()
       {
           $action = ( IS_PROFILE_PAGE ? 'show' : 'edit' ) . '_user_profile';
           add_action( $action, array ( __CLASS__, 'stop' ) );
           ob_start();
       }
   
       /**
        * Strips the bio box from the buffered content.
        *
        * @return void
        */
       public static function stop()
       {
           $html = ob_get_contents();
           ob_end_clean();
   
           // remove the headline
           $headline = __( IS_PROFILE_PAGE ? 'About Yourself' : 'About the user' );
           $html = str_replace( '<h2>' . $headline . '</h2>', '', $html );
   
           // remove the table row
           $html = preg_replace( '~<tr>s*<th><label for="description".*</tr>~imsUu', '', $html );
           print $html;
       }
   }
   

   You can download the code as a standalone plugin: Plugin Remove Bio Box.

   The password fields are now under Contact Info … if you don’t like that, add a headline in stop() – and take care for I18n. 😉

   Log in to Reply

2. The simplest and most lightweight solution is to use CSS to just hide it from view.

   .user-description-wrap {
      display: none;
   }
   

   Log in to Reply

3. Since the recent class change this works:

   add_action( 'personal_options', array ( 'T5_Hide_Profile_Bio_Box', 'start' ) );
   
   /**
    * Captures the part with the biobox in an output buffer and removes it.
    *
    * @author Thomas Scholz, <info@toscho.de>
    *
    */
   class T5_Hide_Profile_Bio_Box
   {
       /**
        * Called on 'personal_options'.
        *
        * @return void
        */
       public static function start()
       {
           $action = ( IS_PROFILE_PAGE ? 'show' : 'edit' ) . '_user_profile';
           add_action( $action, array ( __CLASS__, 'stop' ) );
           ob_start();
       }
   
       /**
        * Strips the bio box from the buffered content.
        *
        * @return void
        */
       public static function stop()
       {
           $html = ob_get_contents();
           ob_end_clean();
   
           // remove the headline
           $headline = __( IS_PROFILE_PAGE ? 'About Yourself' : 'About the user' );
           $html = str_replace( '<h3>' . $headline . '</h3>', '', $html );
   
           // remove the table row
           $html = preg_replace( '~<tr class="user-description-wrap">s*<th><label for="description".*</tr>~imsUu', '', $html );
           print $html;
       }
   }
   

   Log in to Reply

4. Building on the previous answers, here is what I’m using to remove the parts of the User page I don’t want:

   $pagesToAffect = [
       '/wp-admin/user-edit.php',
       '/wp-admin/profile.php'
   ];
   
   if (isset($PHP_SELF) && in_array($PHP_SELF, $pagesToAffect)) {
       add_action('admin_head', [UserProfileCleaner::class, 'start']);
       add_action('admin_footer', [UserProfileCleaner::class, 'finish']);
       add_filter('user_contactmethods',[UserProfileCleaner::class, 'hideInstantMessaging'],10000,1);
   }
   
   class UserProfileCleaner {
       public static function start() {
           ob_start(function($buffer) {
               // Personal Options
               if (!IS_PROFILE_PAGE) {
                   $startHeading = 'Personal Options';
                   $pattern = "@<(h[0-9]) ?[^>]*?>".preg_quote(_x($startHeading))."</\1 ?>@is";
                   preg_match($pattern, $buffer, $start, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
   
                   $endHeading = 'Name';
                   $pattern = "@<(h[0-9]) ?[^>]*?>".preg_quote(_x($endHeading))."</\1 ?>@is";
                   preg_match($pattern, $buffer, $end, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
   
                   if (isset($start[0][1]) && isset($end[0][1]) && $start[0][1]<$end[0][1]) {
                       $buffer = substr($buffer, 0, $start[0][1]).substr($buffer,$end[0][1]);
                   }
               }
   
               $buffer = self::removeSectionHeading($buffer, 'Name');
               $buffer = self::removeSectionHeading($buffer, 'Contact Info');
   
               $buffer = self::removeSectionHeading($buffer, 'Additional Capabilities');
               $buffer = self::removeSectionRow($buffer, 'Capabilities');
   
               $buffer = self::removeSectionHeading($buffer, 'Forums');
   
               // About / Bio
               $heading = IS_PROFILE_PAGE ? 'About Yourself' : 'About the user';
               $buffer = self::removeStandardSection($buffer, $heading);
   
               // Yoast
               $heading = 'Yoast SEO Settings';
               $buffer = self::removeStandardSection($buffer, $heading);
   
               $heading = 'Memberships';
               $pattern = "@<(h[0-9]) ?[^>]*?>".preg_quote(_x($heading))."</\1 ?>.*?</p>@is";
               $buffer = preg_replace($pattern, "", $buffer, 1);
   
               return $buffer;
           });
       }
   
       private static function removeStandardSection($buffer, $heading) {
           $pattern = "@<(h[0-9]) ?[^>]*?>".preg_quote(_x($heading))."</\1 ?>.*?</table>@is";
           return preg_replace($pattern, "", $buffer, 1);
       }
   
       private static function removeSectionHeading($buffer, $heading) {
           $pattern = "@<(h[0-9]) ?[^>]*?>".preg_quote(_x($heading))."</\1 ?>@is";
           return preg_replace($pattern, "", $buffer, 1);
       }
   
       function removeSectionRow($buffer, $heading) {
           $pattern = "@<tr ?[^>]*?>[^<]*?<th ?[^>]*?>[^<]*?".preg_quote(_x($heading))."[^<]*?</th ?[^>]*?>.*?</tr ?>@is";
           return preg_replace($pattern, "", $buffer, 1);
       }
   
       public static function finish() {
           ob_end_flush();
       }
   
       public static function hideInstantMessaging( $contactmethods ) {
           unset($contactmethods['googleplus']);
           unset($contactmethods['twitter']);
           unset($contactmethods['facebook']);
           return $contactmethods;
       }
   }
   

   It’s still reliant on the structure of the HTML, but it works for me.

   Log in to Reply

5. If you add the below code to your functions.php file, it will remove the bio section for all languages of a multi-language site:

   //remove the bio
   function remove_plain_bio($buffer) {
       $titles = array('#<h3>'._x('About Yourself').'</h3>#','#<h3>'._x('About the user').'</h3>#');
       $buffer=preg_replace($titles,'<h3>'._x('Password').'</h3>',$buffer,1);
       $biotable='#<h3>'._x('Password').'</h3>.+?<table.+?/tr>#s';
       $buffer=preg_replace($biotable,'<h3>'._x('Password').'</h3> <table class="form-table">',$buffer,1);
       return $buffer;
   }
   function profile_admin_buffer_start() { ob_start("remove_plain_bio"); }
   function profile_admin_buffer_end() { ob_end_flush(); }
   add_action('admin_head', 'profile_admin_buffer_start');
   add_action('admin_footer', 'profile_admin_buffer_end');
   

   Log in to Reply