WooCommerce admins and store managers can set the product visibility to “Private“. This is helpful if they need to hide certain products from the public, while keeping them available for manual invoicing or other purposes.
The problem, however, is that if admins or store managers are logged in, private WooCommerce products (as well as private WordPress posts, private WordPress pages, etc.) are actually visible on the Shop, Category and product loop pages.
The “Private: ” prefix is added to the product title (see screenshot), but there is usually no need to alter the frontend with products that are not going to be added to the cart anyway!
So, let’s hide private products for WooCommerce administrators from the frontend. Enjoy!
When logged in as an administrator, I can see private products in the product category view, as well as the shop page, etc. This is not good in my opinion because it doesn’t represent what the customers see, while I’d like to experience the same. I can manage and use private products from the backend instead – so, let’s hide them from here!
PHP Snippet: Remove Private Products From Shop, Category, Product Loop Pages
Note: this code also hides private WordPress posts, pages, and custom post type posts.
/** * @snippet Hide Private Products @ WooCommerce Frontend * @how-to Get CustomizeWoo.com FREE * @author Rodolfo Melogli * @compatible WooCommerce 8 * @donate $9 https://businessbloomer.com/bloomer-armada/ */ add_filter( ‘posts_where’, ‘bbloomer_no_private_products_posts_frontend_administrator’ ); function bbloomer_no_private_products_posts_frontend_administrator( $where ) { if ( is_admin() ) return $where; global $wpdb; return ” $where AND {$wpdb->posts}.post_status != ‘private’ “; }
Where to add custom code?
You should place PHP snippets at the bottom of your child theme functions.php file and CSS at the bottom of its style.css file. Make sure you know what you are doing when editing such files – if you need more guidance, please take a look at my guide “Should I Add Custom Code Via WP Editor, FTP or Code Snippets?” and my video tutorial “Where to Place WooCommerce Customization?”
Does this snippet (still) work?
Please let me know in the comments if everything went as expected. I would be happy to revise the snippet if you report otherwise (please provide screenshots). I have tested this code with Storefront theme, the WooCommerce version listed above and a WordPress-friendly hosting.
If you think this code saved you time & money, feel free to join 17,000+ WooCommerce Weekly subscribers for blog post updates and 250+ Business Bloomer supporters for 365 days of WooCommerce benefits. Thank you in advance!
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Rodolfo Melogli
Business Bloomer Founder
Author, WooCommerce expert and WordCamp speaker, Rodolfo has worked as an independent WooCommerce freelancer since 2011. His goal is to help entrepreneurs and developers overcome their WooCommerce nightmares. Rodolfo loves travelling, chasing tennis & soccer balls and, of course, wood fired oven pizza.
