If you allow guest blogging on your WordPress blog, then you might have been inviting people to register as contributors. With the contributor role, the guest writers on your blog can leave their post to be reviewed by the admin (that’s you), who can edit or ask the writer for modifications needed and then publish the post. But the most annoying part of the contributor role on WordPress is it’s limitation of not allowing file or image uploads to the contributors.

allow file uploading to contributors in wordpress

So, how you are going to manage roles on your WordPress? Are you rushing to WordPress Plugin Directory or Google? Wait.

I found this great hack while reading through at Cats Who Code (worth a bookmark) which comes in handy to allow file or image uploads to the contributors on your blog.

All you need to do is put the following code just above ?> in function.php file of your WordPress theme and save it.

if(current_user_can('contributor') && !current_user_can('upload_files'))
  add_action('admin_init', 'enable_contributor_uploads');
function enable_contributor_uploads() {
  $contributor = get_role('contributor');
  $contributor->add_cap('upload_files');
}

From now, the contributors will be able to upload files while submitting posts. Super easy!

If you don’t prefer editing files in your WordPress, you may also go with any one of the below mentioned recommended WordPress plugins to control the role capabilities:

  1. Members by Justin Tadlock
  2. Role Scoper by Kevin Behrens
  3. Capability Manger

Along with Role Management in WordPress, these plugins provide a variety of other features too. So, don’t forget to check out their full description and FAQ to explore them.

Hope you found the post useful. Here are some more recommendations for you: