Get User Role WordPress

There are two WordPress functions that allow you to get a user role in WordPress in order to manage access to a page, access a post, or to execute a certain function. We also show you how to get the WordPress user role with a SQL statement at the bottom of the page.

If you have the WordPress user’s id, the get_userdata WordPress function is perfect for you. However, if you have the user’s username, email, or slug, use the get_user_by WordPress function. We show you how to use both of these functions to get the current user’s roles and to identify what role(s) they’re associated with below.

USE get_userdata IF YOU HAVE USER ID:

// Get the user object.
$user = get_userdata( $user_id );

// Get all the user roles for this user as an array.
$user_roles = $user->roles;

// Check if the specified role is present in the array.
if ( in_array( 'subscriber', $user_roles, true ) ) {
    // user is subscriber
} elseif ( in_array( 'administrator', $user_roles, true ) ) {
    // user is an administrator
} elseif ( in_array( 'editor', $user_roles, true ) ) {
    // user is an editor
} elseif ( in_array( 'author', $user_roles, true ) ) {
    // user is an author
} elseif ( in_array( 'contributor', $user_roles, true ) ) {
    // user is a contributor
}

You can find more information on the get_userdata function at https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/get_userdata.

USE get_user_by IF YOU DON’T HAVE USER ID:

If you need to get a user role in WordPress by the user’s email, you would have to use the get_user_by WordPress function instead.

$user = get_user_by( 'email', 'user@wplauncher.com' );

You can also get the user by their username using the get_user_by function:

$user = get_user_by('login', 'username');

And, you can get WordPress user by slug using the get_user_by function:

$user = get_user_by('slug', 'UserSlug');

For each of the get_user_by options above, you would get WordPress user roles in the same way that you did with the get_userdata function:

// Get all the user roles for this user as an array.
$user_roles = $user->roles;

And, you could use the if statements below to check on the current user’s roles (exactly as we did above):

// Check if the specified role is present in the array.
if ( in_array( 'subscriber', $user_roles, true ) ) {
    // user is subscriber
} elseif ( in_array( 'administrator', $user_roles, true ) ) {
    // user is an administrator
} elseif ( in_array( 'editor', $user_roles, true ) ) {
    // user is an editor
} elseif ( in_array( 'author', $user_roles, true ) ) {
    // user is an author
} elseif ( in_array( 'contributor', $user_roles, true ) ) {
    // user is a contributor
}

Use SQL Statement to Get WordPress User Roles

The SQL statement below gets all user roles from your database. You can use a remote MySQL client like Sequel Pro or open up PHPMyAdmin and run the SQL command below in the Query or SQL field.

SELECT wp_users.ID, wp_users.user_email, wp_users.user_login, wp_usermeta.meta_value
FROM wp_users INNER JOIN wp_usermeta 
ON wp_users.ID = wp_usermeta.user_id 
WHERE wp_usermeta.meta_key = 'wp_capabilities'

The command above references the wp_users table and the wp_usermeta tables and the wp_capabilities meta_key. Make sure that if your WordPress database has a table prefix different than wp_ you replace the references to wp_users, wp_usermeta, and wp_capabilities to use that table prefix. For example, if you have a table prefix that is `wp2304_` your command will look like the following:

SELECT wp2304_users.ID, wp2304_users.user_email, wp2304_users.user_login, wp2304_usermeta.meta_value
FROM wp2304_users INNER JOIN wp2304_usermeta 
ON wp2304_users.ID = wp2304_usermeta.user_id 
WHERE wp2304_usermeta.meta_key = 'wp2304_capabilities'

Both of the commands above will generate a result that the user id, the user login and the meta value, which will identify the user’s role. This result looks like the following:

2	2@email.com     user2	a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}
3	3@email.com     user3	a:1:{s:10:"subscriber";b:1;}
4	4@email.com     user4	a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}
5	5@email.com     user5	a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}
6	6@email.com     user6	a:1:{s:13:"administrator";b:1;}