How to Password Protect Your WordPress without User Registration

There are many tutorials out there that shows you how to password protect your website content. Many of those utilize complex membership plugins that require user registration. But what if you just want to password protect your site without user registration? Let’s say you have a demo site for client work. You may only want that specific client to see your site. In this article, we will show you a very simple way to quickly password protect your WordPress site with a single password.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the Password Protected plugin. Upon activation, you will see new settings under your Settings » Privacy page. If you are using version 3.5, then the settings will be under your Setting » Reading page.

Enable the Password Protect status. You have the option to allow feeds, but in most cases you probably don’t want to. So we will leave that as is. Add the password there, and you are done.

Note: If you are using this for clients, then you should probably reset that password after each client.

Now whenever someone tries to reach your WordPress site, they will see a password screen like this:

You can even change the login logo and add your custom one using Mark’s Login Logo plugin.

You can also use this technique to create a private blog that you may only want to give access to your family members or friends without requiring each of them to register. If you just want to password protect a specific post, here is a tutorial on how to password protect a specific post in WordPress.