Global Meta Box Order for WordPress

Intuitively harmonize meta box positions and screen column layout for all backend users of your WordPress installation.

Quick Overview

Install and activate the plugin

Switch to a post, a page, a custom post type, or the dashboard

Change the order and position of a meta box (or all of them)

Change the column layout

Switch to a different user (maybe with the help of the User Switching plugin)

See your changes applied

Installation Download and unpack, then move the folder ‘global-meta-box-order’ into your ‘plugins’ folder. Head over to your WordPress installation and activate the plugin in the admin area.

Rollback The plugin doesn’t write anything to the database, it just reads. So it never touches any user settings, but instead filters them on a per request basis. Though all applied changes appear to be permanent from a user’s perspective, they are not. Just deactivate the plugin and see all changes disappear. Activate it again, and they will all be reapplied.

How It Works The plugin operates on a blueprint user whose screen settings for meta boxes (visibility, position and ordering), and column layout are cloned for all other backend users on the fly.

By default, this blueprint user is the first admin user found, so you’ll need to be logged in as that user to globally change screen settings. For how to change the default blueprint user as well as other settings, please refer to the Configuration section below.

Where It Works By default, the plugin kicks in when a user: