Quick Start

Quick Start

This guide walks you through the basic workflow for setting up Admin UX Cleaner (AUC) for the first time.

You do not need to configure every feature immediately. A good first setup is to choose your audience, make a small admin customization, preview the result, and confirm that everything works as expected.

1. Open Admin UX Cleaner

From your WordPress admin dashboard, open Admin UX Cleaner.

The AUC interface is organized into separate sections for configuring different parts of the WordPress admin experience.

The main Admin UX Cleaner interface and available configuration sections.

For your first configuration, start with a small set of changes rather than configuring everything at once.

2. Choose Your Audience

Before applying admin customizations, decide which users should receive them.

Open the Audience settings and select the roles or individual users you want AUC to affect.

Configure which WordPress roles and users should receive your AUC customizations.

For example, if you are preparing a website for a client with an Editor account, you might apply your configuration to the Editor role while keeping your own administrator account unaffected.

Be careful when applying configurations to administrator accounts. Before doing so, make sure you understand the available safety and recovery options.

For more information, see Audience and Safety & Recovery.

3. Make Your First Admin Cleanup

A simple way to test your configuration is to hide an unnecessary admin menu item.

Open Menu Cleaner and find a menu item that your selected audience does not need.

Hide the item and save your changes.

Use Menu Cleaner to control which WordPress admin menu items are visible to your selected audience.

Start with something non-critical so you can easily confirm how the configuration behaves.

Remember that hiding a menu item only changes its visibility. It does not remove the user's WordPress capabilities or necessarily prevent direct access to the underlying admin page.

If you need to prevent access to a page, use Page Locks.

4. Preview the Result

Before handing the website over to a client or another user, use Preview to inspect how the admin area will appear to the selected audience.

Choose the role or user you want to preview.

Preview the WordPress admin experience for a selected role or user.

Check that:

• Required menu items are still available.
• Hidden items are no longer visible.
• The admin navigation remains easy to understand.
• Users can still reach the areas they need for their work.

Preview is useful for checking your configuration, but you should still test important workflows with an appropriate user account before handing over a production website.

5. Add Page Locks When Necessary

If hiding a menu item is not enough and you need to prevent the selected audience from opening a specific admin page directly, configure a Page Lock.

Use Page Locks when an admin page should be inaccessible, not merely hidden from the menu.

Only lock pages when there is a clear reason to restrict access.

Menu Cleaner and Page Locks serve different purposes:

• Menu Cleaner simplifies what users see.
• Page Locks restrict access to selected admin pages.

For detailed configuration options, see Page Locks.

6. Check Your Safety Options

Before applying a larger configuration, review the AUC safety features.

Make sure you understand how to regain access if a configuration produces an unexpected result.

Review AUC recovery and safety options before applying significant access changes.

AUC provides multiple safety mechanisms, including:

• Owner Bypass
• Recovery Mode
• Safe Mode

Keep any required recovery information somewhere you can access even if you encounter a problem inside WordPress.

7. Build Your Configuration Gradually

Once your first configuration works correctly, you can continue cleaning up other areas of the WordPress admin.

Depending on your website and users, you may want to configure:

• Menu Cleaner for admin navigation.
• Notice Cleaner for unnecessary admin notices.
• Dashboard Cleaner for dashboard widgets.
• Admin Bar Cleaner for toolbar items.
• Page Locks for pages that require access restrictions.

You do not need to use every AUC feature.

Only configure the areas that make the admin experience clearer or safer for your users.

8. Back Up Your Configuration

After you have created and tested a configuration you are happy with, create a backup of your AUC settings.

A backup gives you a known working configuration that can be restored later if necessary.

If you manage multiple websites, you can also use AUC's import and export tools to move compatible configurations between installations.

See Backup & Restore and Import & Export for details.

A Simple First Setup

For your first AUC configuration, the basic workflow can be summarized as:

1. Select the target audience.
2. Hide one unnecessary menu item.
3. Save the configuration.
4. Preview the selected role or user.
5. Add Page Locks only where access restriction is required.
6. Review your safety and recovery options.
7. Test the configuration.
8. Back up the working setup.

Once you are comfortable with this workflow, continue to the Features documentation to learn how each AUC component works in detail.