Website management and maintenance requires you to remove unwanted users from your website constantly. This process will take you a lot of time and effort if there are dozens of such accounts. That’s why creating and revoking these accounts automatically via a temporary access could be a more efficient solution. Better yet, your users don’t even have to manage their account passwords.
In this article, we will explain what temporary access without passwords is and why you need it. Then, we will show you how to create temporary “passwordless” accounts to login to your WordPress dashboard or access your password protected content automatically.
What Is Temporary Access without Passwords?
Temporary access without passwords, also known as one-click access, allows users to access your WordPress dashboard or protected content in a given time automatically.
Instead of having to enter passwords manually, users can click on a special link that grants protected content access or logs them into WordPress dashboard automatically. This link will become invalid after a certain period of time. After that, users have to login or enter passwords again to gain back access to your WordPress dashboard and protected content.
Why Allowing Temporary Access without Password?
You might wonder when to give users temporary access to your WordPress dashboard. Here are the most common scenario:
Grant WordPress admin temporary access to specific users, in this case ” US” ( 75CODES)
We all need a helping hand sometimes. It could be a freelance developer to assist with coding or a web development agency to upgrade your website design & fix bugs. In order to do so, we would need access to your WordPress admin dashboard.
Since these jobs are short-term, you should provide us with temporary accounts that stop us from accessing your WordPress dashboard after a period of time.
Get rid of manual account management
It takes a lot of time to create and manage such temporary accounts manually. What’s more, you must always remember to go back and disable these users’ accounts once the work has been done. That way we wont have remember the credential information to login.
Temporary “passwordless” access solves these issues with ease. Simply create a temporary access link with an expiry time. These links and corresponding accounts will automatically become invalid after the period.
You don’t have to manage these accounts manually anymore. Neither your users have to remember their passwords. An important factor to maintain high-security for your site.
If you have to create many temporary accounts, chances are you will forget to remove some. This will open doors for unwanted users to hack into your website and data.
Besides, when being asked for a password, WordPress owners often use the same or think of a easy to remember, but weak, password. It can be their own birthday, their name, and the variations of the word “password” such as “passw0rd” or “p4ssw0rd”. “Ofcom organization” identifies in the “Adults’ Media Use and Attitudes Report 2013”, report that, 55% of 1,805 internet users aged 16 and over use only one password for most websites. Consequently, hackers can easily guess these passwords and access your website.
Providing “passwordless” access temporarily will stop users from creating weak passwords and helps increase your site security.
Now you understand the benefits and common cases when you should provide temporary access to your WordPress dashboard and protected content. It’s time to discover the how-to.
How to Create Temporary Login Accounts
Temporary Login Without Password free plugin, as its name suggests, allows site owners to create temporary accounts for different user roles, including Admin, Developer, Subscriber, Editor, and more. You don’t have to worry about the security vulnerability of generating a lot of new accounts since they will be disabled after a certain time period.
The 3 following steps show you how to install and use the plugin to create and manage temporary access to your WordPress dashboard.
Step 1: Install Temporary Login Without Password plugin
Quickly add the plugin to your WordPress dashboard by:
Heading to Plugin in your WordPress navigation menu and click Add New
Search for Temporary Login Without Password in the Keyword box
Hit Install and Activate buttons
Step 2: Create login links
Upon activation, the plugin will be inserted directly to your WordPress dashboard sidebar, under the Users section. Click Create New to add a new temporary login account.
You need to fill out the form with the information of the new temporary account:
- Enter the email, the first and last name of the user.
- Choose a role for that user.
- There are different roles you can select such as Admin, Subscriber, Editor, etc.
- Set the expiration time.
After this duration, the account won’t be valid anymore. The default time period is one week from the date you create that temporary account. You can choose a custom date too.
Once providing all the information, remember to hit the Submit button to save your changes.
After you’ve done creating a temporary login account, let’s see how to share it with others as well as check the login information in the Manage temporary logins step below.
Step 3: Manage temporary logins
Temporary Login Without Password makes it really easy for you to manage the temporary accounts. You can go to the Temporary Logins page under Users in your WordPress navigation menu.
There, you can see a list of temporary accounts with their details. Each column presents an element of the login information, from the username, role, the last logged in time to the time the account will expire.
There are different icons in the Actions column that enables you to:
- Disable the account with the lock icon
- Delete the account through the cross (x) icon
- Edit the account information via the pencil icon
- Send the login links to users embedded in emails by clicking on the mail icon
- Copy the login URL with the hyperlink icon
Keep in mind that if you delete a temporary account, the author’s name of the content created by that user will be replaced by the admin account.
