How to Add Multiple Password Protection to WordPress

As a WordPress website owner, you need a simple way to restrict access to your site’s content. This is especially useful if you’re looking to grant users access to or sell premium content on your website. One way to do this is by assigning individual passwords to users that allow them to view your content. For this, you will need to add multiple password protection to WordPress.

An easy way to manage access to site content when you have multiple users is by using the Passster plugin for WordPress. This way, you can put exclusive content in a secure area so that only verified members are able to read it.

In this article, we’ll walk you through a quick, step-by-step tutorial to help you add multiple password protection to your WordPress site and make your site’s content private (i.e. hidden). But first, let’s take a minute to talk about multiple password protection and how it can help you control access to your site’s content.

Why you might want to add multiple password protection to WordPress

Adding multiple password protection to WordPress means that each of your site’s members will be able to access the same premium content using a different password. When different users (or different types of users) have their own password, it will be easier for you to manage and revoke access to content.

As an example, you can assign ‘password1’ to User 1, ‘password2’ to User 2, and so on. Similarly, you can assign users on the Silver Plan ‘password-silver’ and users on the Gold Plan ‘password-gold’. Both passwords will unlock the same content.

Here are some reasons why you might consider adding multiple password protection to WordPress:

• Sharing portfolios with prospective clients. When you want to give different prospective clients access to your hidden portfolio. You’ll be able to easily revoke access to your portfolio once the client has viewed it. This is great for photographers and freelancers.
• Granting different types of users or user roles access to premium content. You can grant different types of users access to premium content. For example, users with the Subscriber user role can only preview premium content whereas users with the Member user role can view the full content.
• Setting up a registry site e.g. wedding registry or baby registry. When you’re looking to set up a registry website and you want to let different people view the registry items. This way, you won’t have to ask people to share passwords to access the registry website.
• Creating a private gallery. It gives you an easy way to set up a private, temporary gallery. This is useful for photographers that need to share watermarked photos of the event with clients so they can choose which ones they’d like to purchase or add to their order.

Now that you know how multiple passwords can help you control access to your site’s content in an effective way, let’s start setting up multiple password protection on your WordPress website.

How to add multiple password protection to WordPress using Passster

Here, we’ll show you how to add multiple passwords to your WordPress website to restrict access to content.

Step #1: Install and activate Passster

Start by logging into your WordPress admin panel and going to Plugins > Add New. From here, search for Passster and install and activate the Passster – Password Protection plugin on your site.

The Passster plugin’s free version allows you to control access to content using a single password. This is a great way to make your site content private. However, if you want to generate multiple passwords to manage access to your site’s content, you’ll have to upgrade to the pro version of the plugin.

Step #2: Add a new Password List

Adding multiple passwords to your WordPress site lets you grant readers access to private content that works for both the membership model and the subscription model. You can add as many passwords as you want and give each user their own password.

1. Navigate to the Passster->Password Lists and click the Add New Password List button.
2. Make the following configurations:
   1. Enter a title for the password list. For example Subscribers or Members.
   2. Select No in the Expire Passwords dropdown list.
   3. Enter a list of passwords (separated by commas) in the Passwords textbox.
3. Click on the Save Password List button to continue.
4. Copy the shortcode from the password list overview.

Here is the overview:

If you’re not sure whether you should create a single password list or multiple password list, remember that:

• Single password list is sufficient for when you’re looking for a simple solution for content protection and you only have a handful of people you’d like to grant access to. For instance, if you need to offer free trials or are building an email list.
• Multiple password lists are ideal for when you have a segmented list of contacts and you need to grant lots of different types of users (or members) access to exclusive content. For example, when you’re setting up a membership site.

Step #3: Password protect content using the shortcode

You’ll need to add the automatically generated shortcode to your content to assign passwords. Here’s how you can use the multiple passwords option to protect your site’s content.

First, copy the shortcode to your clipboard and head over to the page you’d like to add the exclusive, password-protected content to. From here, wrap the content you’d like to protect with the shortcode. It will look something like this:

If you preview the page on the website’s front-end, it should look like the screenshot below:

When a user opens your site and enters the correct password, they’ll be able to access the premium content.

Set up multiple password protection on your WordPress website

Adding multiple password protection to WordPress can help you manage user access to premium content, effectively.

By adding multiple password protection to your WordPress site, you can grant different users (or types of users) access to the same premium content using different passwords. It also makes it easy to revoke access to content. Photographers, freelancers, private gallery owners, and membership site owners are just some of the professionals that can benefit from adding multiple passwords to their website.

The best part is that you don’t need to install a membership plugin or mess around with custom code. With the Passster plugin, you can easily add multiple password protection to your WordPress website in a few simple steps.