How to Show Registration Date in WordPress User Profiles

How to Show the User Registration Date in WordPress (Ultimate Guide)

Are you looking to display the date a user registered on your WordPress site? Showing the user registration date can be very useful in a variety of scenarios, especially on membership sites, forums, and other community-driven sites.

Displaying a "Member since [date]" on a user‘s profile instantly communicates how long they‘ve been part of your community. It provides helpful context and is a form of social proof.

In this ultimate guide, we‘ll cover everything you need to know about showing user registration dates in WordPress, including:

• Why and where you should display registration dates
• How to show the registration date in the admin Users table
• Adding the registration date to the Edit User screen
• Displaying a user‘s registration date on the front-end of your site
• Best practices and additional tips

Let‘s get started!

Why Display User Registration Dates in WordPress?

If you run any kind of membership site, forum, online course, or other community site on WordPress, showing user registration dates can be incredibly useful.

Some key benefits include:

• Provides instant context about how long a user has been a member of your community
• Acts as social proof – if you have long-time members, this is immediately evident
• Allows other users to quickly assess someone‘s potential experience level or authority
• On forums, a registration date gives context to someone‘s post history
• Helps gamify your community – users may take pride in how long they‘ve been a loyal member

Essentially, a visible registration date helps establish a user‘s identity and standing within your community. So with the why covered, let‘s look at where you might want to show this info.

Where to Show User Registration Dates

There are three key places you may want to show a user‘s registration date:

1. In the Users table in the WordPress admin area
2. On the Edit User screen for a user in the admin area
3. On a user‘s public profile on the front-end of your site

Displaying the date in the admin Users table gives you and other administrators a quick overview of your user base. You can easily see when each user joined and sort by join date.

The Edit User screen is visible to admins and to that user themselves if they can edit their profile. Showing the registration date here allows the user to see how long they‘ve been a member.

Finally, showing the registration date on a user‘s public profile is most common. This allows anyone viewing that user‘s profile to see how long they‘ve been part of your community.

So now that we know why and where to show registration dates, let‘s dive into the how.

How to Show Registration Date in the Admin Users Table

WordPress doesn‘t show user registration dates in the Users table by default, but with the help of a plugin we can easily add this.

The plugin we recommend is Admin Columns. It‘s a powerful free plugin that lets you extensively customize the columns in the WordPress admin tables, including the Users table.

To get started:

1. Install and activate the free Admin Columns plugin.
2. Go to Settings → Admin Columns to configure the plugin.
3. Click on the "Users" tab and then "Add Column".
4. In the modal that appears, select "Registered" under "Type" and click "Save".
5. Drag your new "Registered" column to your desired position in the columns list.
6. Click "Save" at the bottom of the page.

Now when you go to Users in your WordPress admin area, you‘ll see a new "Registered" column showing each user‘s registration date.

You can click on the column header to sort your users by registration date, and you can use the plugin‘s other features to further customize the Users table to your needs.

This is the easiest way to add registration dates to the Users table. But if you don‘t want to use a plugin, it is possible to code this yourself.

You would use the ‘manage_users_columns‘ filter to add the new column, and ‘manage_users_custom_column‘ to populate it with the registration date. Here‘s a simplified version of the code:

function add_registration_column($columns) {
$columns[‘registered‘] = ‘Registered‘;
return $columns;
}
add_filter(‘manage_users_columns‘, ‘add_registration_column‘);

function show_registration_date($value, $column_name, $user_id) {
if (‘registered‘ == $column_name) {
$user = get_userdata($user_id);
return date("Y-m-d", strtotime($user->user_registered));
}
}
add_action(‘manage_users_custom_column‘, ‘show_registration_date‘, 10, 3);

This code would go in your theme‘s functions.php file or in a custom plugin.

However, we recommend sticking with the Admin Columns plugin for an easier and more flexible solution.

Displaying Registration Date on the Edit User Screen

What if you want to show a user‘s registration date on their Edit User screen in the WordPress admin area? This is visible to admins editing any user, and to users editing their own profile.

To do this, we can use the ‘show_user_profile‘ and ‘edit_user_profile‘ hooks to add a custom field to the Edit User screen.

Here‘s the code to add to your theme‘s functions.php file or a custom plugin:

function show_registration_date_user_profile($user) {
?>

<?php
}
add_action('show_user_profile', 'show_registration_date_user_profile');
add_action('edit_user_profile', 'show_registration_date_user_profile');

This will add a new "Registration Date" field to the bottom of the Edit User screen, displaying the date in a human-friendly format like "June 1, 2023".

You can customize the date format by changing the arguments passed to the date() function. Check out the PHP date() documentation for all the possible formatting options.

With this in place, admins and users will be able to easily see the registration date whenever editing a user profile in WordPress.

Showing a User‘s Registration Date on the Front-End

Perhaps the most common place to display a user‘s registration date is on their public profile on your WordPress site‘s front-end.

There are a couple different ways we can do this depending on your specific needs and setup.

Method 1: Using the get_the_author_meta() Function

If you‘re showing the registration date on a single user‘s profile page, like at example.com/user/username, you can use the get_the_author_meta() function.

This function retrieves meta data about the author of the current post. On a single user‘s profile page, WordPress treats that user as the "author".

So in your theme‘s template file for the user profile page (e.g. author.php), you can add this code where you want to display the registration date:

Member since:

This will output something like "Member since: June 1, 2023" on the user‘s profile page.

Again, you can customize the date format by changing the arguments passed to the date() function.

Method 2: Using a Shortcode

If you need more flexibility in where and how you display the registration date, creating a shortcode is a great option.

A shortcode allows you to display a user‘s registration date anywhere on your site that accepts shortcodes, like in a post, page, widget, or custom HTML.

Here‘s how to create a registration date shortcode:

function registration_date_shortcode($atts) {
$a = shortcode_atts(array(
‘user‘ => ‘‘,
‘format‘ => ‘F j, Y‘,
), $atts);

$user = get_user_by(‘login‘, $a[‘user‘]);

if (!$user) {
    return ‘User not found.‘;
}

return ‘Member since: ‘ . date($a[‘format‘], strtotime($user->user_registered));

}
add_shortcode(‘reg_date‘, ‘registration_date_shortcode‘);

Add this code to your theme‘s functions.php file or a custom plugin.

Now you can use the shortcode [reg_date user="username"] anywhere on your site to display that user‘s registration date.

For example, if you wanted to show the registration date on a user‘s forum posts, you could edit your forum template to include the shortcode next to the username.

The shortcode also supports a "format" attribute to customize the date format, like so: [reg_date user="username" format="Y-m-d"].

With these methods in your toolkit, you can flexibly display a user‘s registration date anywhere on your WordPress site.

Best Practices and Tips

When displaying user registration dates on your WordPress site, there are a few best practices and additional tips to keep in mind:

• Always consider the user experience. Only show the registration date where it truly adds value, not just for the sake of it.
• Be consistent in how you format and display the date across your site.
• Use a human-friendly date format like "June 1, 2023" rather than something like "2023-06-01" which is harder to quickly parse.
• If showing the date on the front-end, consider adding a "Member since" or similar label for context.
• Remember that a user‘s registration date is personal data. Make sure you‘re in compliance with privacy laws like GDPR.
• If you allow users to delete their accounts, consider how you‘ll handle the registration date. Will you keep it as is or remove it?

Bonus Tip: Adding Registration Date to User Profile Fields

As a related tip, you may want to consider adding the registration date as a custom field in the user profile.

This can be especially useful if you allow users to edit their profiles and want to display additional info like their join date.

To add the registration date as a custom user field, you can use the ‘user_register‘ form hook. Here‘s a simplified version of the code:

function add_registration_date_to_profile($user_id) {
update_user_meta($user_id, ‘registration_date‘, time());
}
add_action(‘user_register‘, ‘add_registration_date_to_profile‘);

This code hooks into the user registration process and saves the current timestamp as a ‘registration_date‘ meta field for that user.

Then, you can retrieve and display this field anywhere you can access the user‘s meta data, like in their profile editor or on the front-end.

For example, to display it on the user‘s profile editor screen:

function show_extra_profile_fields($user) {
$registration_date = get_the_author_meta(‘registration_date‘, $user->ID);
?>

<?php
}
add_action('show_user_profile', 'show_extra_profile_fields');
add_action('edit_user_profile', 'show_extra_profile_fields');

This is just one example of the many ways you can extend and customize user profiles in WordPress.

Conclusion

Displaying a user‘s registration date can be a valuable addition to your WordPress membership site, forum, online course, or any other community-based site.

It provides instant context about a user‘s history with your community and can serve as a form of social proof.

In this guide, we‘ve covered multiple ways to show user registration dates:

• Using the Admin Columns plugin to add a registration date column to the Users table in the WordPress admin area
• Adding the date to the Edit User screen with code
• Displaying the date on the front-end using get_the_author_meta() or a custom shortcode
• Adding the registration date as a custom user profile field

Armed with these techniques, you can strategically show user registration dates throughout your WordPress site to enhance the user experience and sense of community.

Always consider the user experience first and foremost, and make sure you‘re handling user data responsibly and in compliance with privacy laws.

With a little creativity and customization, displaying user registration dates can be a powerful addition to your WordPress site.