How do you remove dates from posts? How do you show/hide the published date on a single post?
With WordPress, you can customize everything even if you can not afford to hire a WordPress developer.
Remove the WP post published date without using a plugin
Let’s not junk the WP with different plugins for tiny tasks. We have the option to achieve our goal without wasting time on plugin searches.
There are plugins available for this task but it might break your theme look and feel. So, it is better to do an alternative to remove the WP published date.
Best Free WordPress Themes Easy To Cusmotize
Change or customize the published date in WordPress?
There are many different ways to change the format of the WP published date or to replace it with the last updated date.
One is pretty simple is to install the dedicated plugin to achieve the result that we are skipping, other is to change or replace the WP function in the theme editor. We are skipping the second way too. You can look at those functions for WP get_the_date() and get_last_updated()
Here we will see the method to do with messing around the WP script and no even looking for plugins.
Table of Contents
Method 1: Hide the published date from the WP admin dashboard
WordPress allows us to customize the date format as we do with the permalink. Save is possible through the admin dashboard panel.
This method is super easy and with no plugin, you need to just remove the WP post published date. It Keeps the date with an empty field, so no date appears. You may need to compromise with style like separate may appear and feels of void section.
- Mouse hover “Settings” and click on “General“.
- Under the “Date Format” section, select “Custom” then remove and keep it empty.
Method 2: Hide the published date using the CSS attribute
This method is another simple yet powerful way to hide the published date from the WP post.
You can use the CSS visibility property to hide and get all things done instantly. To do so, first identify the class name and then add the hidden attribute using additional CSS on the customize theme page.
How to find the class name of the WP published date?
First of all, open the page and see the date, copy it. You can also look for the nearby text like author name and category name.
Now open source code using Ctrl+U in Windows and Option+Command+U in Mac. Right-click on the mouse will show you the option to view the page source.
Now use the search function by Ctrl+F (on Windows) key Command+F (on Mac). Then use the words to search, here we looked for March 2 and you can see the entry date and published class can be managed.
So you can add hidden attributes on any of the classes like this.
.entry-date {display: hidden;} or .publish {display: hidden;}
Method 3: Use the proper WP theme
By using supported themes that have the option to customize the WP post metadata.
There are a huge number of themes available in the WordPress theme library. Anyone will give you a professional look and many paid as well as free themes do have features to show both dates or to manage.
However, searching for a good professional-looking theme for a free version will be time-consuming. You can get any of the very popular themes that have such features.
You can manage to fully hide the date or show the date and then switch to the published or updated date to show on the posts.
These themes are lightweight and have enough functions to customize your blog. Some are:
Astra
Astra comes with pretty much enough features in the free version. Unlike GeneratePress you will have the option to choose the homepage look either list view or block view.
You can always go with page builders to further customize it. Building large projects, you are advised to purchase their plan.
The free version will definitely let you customize typography, header, footer, and sidebar. Even good to manage the feature images, title, and meta to show and rearrange the order.
How do you remove the published date on a single post?
GeneratePress does allow you to show or hide published dates. You can do so, by WP customizer.
Blog then Blog/Archive, here you can select the container layout to narrow or full width. Also with side management. (Path: Blog -> Blog/Archive)
As you scroll down to the Posts Structure section, you can manage to show or hide the title, feature image, and categories, and just below Meta (subsection), where you can manage the visibility of Author and Date.
To remove the published date: Switch the button and the date will be turned off.
To show the last updated date: Just select the tab to show the updated date and the format.
Blocksy
Another good WP theme as an alternative to GeneratePress if you are looking to use customized text.
As the name suggests, the blog homepage is a pre-built block view. Manageable and evenly valuable theme to remove the published date or to show the last modified date without using any plugin.
How to remove the published date and show the updated date?
Open WordPress Customizer and click on Single Post, on top click to Post Title. Scroll down to the Elements section, and click on Post Meta. Here you can manage to show/hide the WordPress publish date. (Path: Single Post -> Post Title -> Post Meta)
Neve
Another good WordPress theme for building a professional-looking site. You can easily manage the homepage view to list or grid. No plugin is needed.
The main part is typography header and footer customization. These features let you build.
How to remove the published date and show the updated date?
To manage WordPress’s last updated date, use the WP customizer. For a single post view, you are able to show or hide the post-published date as well as the last modified date.
Both elements have the same options. Select the format or use your own design for the same.
Neve does not allow you to select from the different format nor has to add a custom date format. Yet powerful to manage published posts and replace them with WordPress last updated date.
Open WordPress theme customizer. Now click on Layout, then on Single Post. Here you can manage the page layout with a predefined template. Scroll down to Post Meta and you are good to remove the post publish date. Down below you will see if you just want to replace it with WordPress last updated date instead. (Path: Layout -> Single Post)
WordPress last updated date is quite simple with these lightweight themes. You do not need to look at and install extra plugins that may break the theme look with typography.
Conclusion
WordPress post dates have a significant impact on viewer action. If you have an event blog, a review, or any type of article that has to be updated, showing the most recent date is useful.
Mostly we have separate plugins for different needs. So you will find many plugins to show the last modified date that will appear on top of the post. This looks a little odd and also the typography may differ from the page.
So better to use such themes that let you manage post meta without requiring extra plugins. The more plugins you utilize, the longer the site will take to load.