Sometimes, when editing capabilities in the Role Editor, you might remove a permission you actually need, leaving you or other users unable to access parts of your site. The Members plugin includes a built-in tool to reset the five default WordPress roles back to their original capabilities.
Before proceeding, generate a full backup of your website. A free plugin like Duplicator can do this in a few clicks, and you can also export your roles first.
Resetting will delete any custom roles you created with Members. You’ll need to recreate them afterward. Roles added by other plugins (e.g., WooCommerce) are not affected.
Reset using the Members settings
- Go to Members → Settings in your WordPress admin.
- Scroll to the Miscellaneous section.
- Next to Reset Roles, click Reset to Default WordPress Roles.
- Confirm the action when prompted.
This restores Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor, and Subscriber to their default WordPress capabilities, and removes any custom roles created with Members.
- Users of removed roles aren’t left without a role. Anyone who only had a removed custom role gets your site’s default role (usually Subscriber). Users with other roles keep those.
- Administrators keep the Members screens. Members adds its own capabilities back to the Administrator role after the reset.
If you have Members add-ons turned on that add capabilities, like Category & Tag Caps, Privacy Caps, or Core Create Caps, their capabilities are added back right after the reset. You don’t need to turn those add-ons off and on again.
Resetting roles from other plugins
Reset Roles doesn’t touch roles other plugins created, like WooCommerce’s Shop Manager and Customer. To reset those, use the plugin’s own tool if it has one. For WooCommerce, go to WooCommerce → Status → Tools and run Reset capabilities.
Don’t try to “reset” a role by unticking every capability. That also removes read, so its users can’t use the dashboard at all.
If you’re locked out of the admin
If a capability change has locked you out of wp-admin entirely, you won’t be able to reach the Members settings to use the reset button. Use the Administrator Rescue Link to restore your access, then return to Members → Settings and use the Reset to Default WordPress Roles button to repair the role capabilities themselves.