A lot of website creators still don’t like using Gutenberg Editor for writing a blog, or some might like it but still want to use classic editor also and in some cases, while working in a team some team members like using Gutenberg editor and some don’t. Also, your client might still wanna use classic editor. In this article, we are going to tell you how you can disable Gutenberg editor or use both classic editor and Gutenberg editor on the same website.
Table of Contents
What is Gutenberg and Classic Editor?
I know you already know about but still a brief introduction, in December 2018, in WordPress version 5.0 WordPress released a new block editor that was codenamed, Gutenberg. This new editor replaced the default TinyMCE-based editor (Classic Editor) which we have been using for so long.
This new editor claims to be better and easier to use, but since most of the website creators are very attached and comfortable with the classic editor and in its initial release, Gutenberg has many bugs people didn’t like the new editor at all. And there are a lot of negative reviews started floating around on the internet.
But still, WordPress developers team keep working on this new editor and now it is a lot better and developers and site creator actually using and loving this new editor we have written a very detailed article about new Gutenberg editor how it is the future of WordPress, pros & cons of it and why you should learn it, and much more, make sure to check it out.
How to disable Gutenberg Editor?
In this article, we are going to tell you about not just one but three different ways of disabling Gutenberg Editor and also how you can use both editors on the same website which can be useful if you are working in a team. So let’s know about them.
Method 1 – Install the Classic Editor WordPress Plugin
After the launch of Gutenberg editor, the WordPress core development team has released the Classic Editor plugin. This plugin will restore your old classic editor and hide all functionality of the new Gutenberg block editor. This plugin is an officially recommended way to disable the block editor and get the classic editor back.
Currently, the classic editor plugin is one of the most downloaded plugins of WordPress, it has over 5 million+ active installations and has a 5 out of 5-stars ratings from more than nine hundred users.
Installation of this plugin is the same as any other if you go to the WordPress plugin store you will certainly see the Classic Editor plugin on the home page, but if somehow you don’t see it you can search classic editor and you will see this plugin, install and activate it.
After the activation of this plugin, you don’t need to do anything it workes out of the box and automatically disable your Gutenberg plugin and replace it with a plain old classic editor. However, there are few options that come with this plugin that can be very helpful.
Basically, this plugin offers two modes, one is to change the default editor for every user, you can choose block or classic editor and another option is to let users choose which editor they wanna choose. To get this option from your WordPress dashboard navigate to Settings>Writing and you will see the option to choose the setting as shown in the image above.
One thing to keep in mind is that according to the official WordPress development team this plugin only gets support for at least 2022 and after that, it may extend if required but it will surely lose support soon so you should consider learning the new block editor.
Method 2 – Install the Disable Gutenberg WordPress Plugin
Disable Gutenberg WordPress plugin is a similar plugin to the official classic editor but with a lot more options and flexibility. It has over six hundred thousand plus active installation and 5 out of 5-star ratings, ratings are even better than the official plugin. It’s super lightweight and barely adds any load to your website.
Installation of this plugin is the same and it will also be activated and it has many useful features which give you a lot of flexibility where you want to use Gutenberg editor and where you want to have a classic editor. And the best part according to its developer like the official classic editor plugin this plugin won’t get abandoned in 2022 and keep getting updates.
As per the feature you can disable Gutenberg editor in selected areas of WordPress such as only disable it for certain page types and keep Gutenberg for selected pages. You can also use this plugin to disable Gutenberg for selected user roles which is perfect if you are working for clients and there are much more options available.
To see all the extra options from your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Settings>Disable Gutenberg and untick “Disable Gutenberg everywhere” to see extra options. Now from the list, you can disable Gutenberg for selected locations. Click on “Save changes” and now Gutenberg will be disabled from your selected locations.
Complete options given by this plugin as per plugin official details are below:
- Disable Gutenberg completely (all post types)
- Disable Gutenberg for any post type
- Disable Gutenberg for any user role
- Disable Gutenberg for any theme template
- Disable Gutenberg for any post/page IDs
- Disable Gutenberg admin notice (nag)
- Option to restore Classic Widgets
- Option to hide the plugin menu item
- Option to hide the Gutenberg plugin menu item (settings link)
- Adds “Classic Editor” link to each post on the Posts screen
- Adds item to the WP sidebar menu: “Add New (Classic)”
- NEW! Option to enable Custom Fields Meta Box for ACF
- NEW! Choose which editor to use for each post
- NEW! Whitelist any post title, slug, or ID
- NEW! Option to disables frontend Gutenberg stylesheet
Method 3 – Edit function.php File
The third method which I am going to talk about is using code to disable Gutenberg editor, you don’t need to install any plugin. Just paste the code given below at the bottom of your WordPress website’s function.php file and “save changes” the Gutenberg editor will get disabled.
add_filter('use_block_editor_for_post', '__return_false', 10);
But keep in mind that directly injecting code into your WordPress config files may break your website to take a backup before doing and do not remove anything extra if you don’t know what you are doing.
Conclusion
In this article, we have learned how we can disable the new Gutenberg editor from our WordPress website with and without plugins and even for selected user roles and pages. But keep in mind disabling it is not future proof and at some point, you need to learn Gutenberg to take full advantage of WordPress.
If you wanna learn about Gutenberg and wanna know how this is the future and why you should learn it considers our Gutenberg introduction article where we have explained everything you need to know about this new editor. Also, keep visiting our blogs because we are going to write a lot more content for Gutenberg and possibly full site editing with it so stay tuned for that.