Settings
Navigate to SwitchGuard in your WordPress admin menu. Settings are organised across five tabs: General, Advanced, Notifications, Audit, and License.
General Tab
Access Control
Controls who can start a switch session and how long sessions last.
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Enable User Switching | Yes | Master on/off toggle. Turn off to block all switching. |
| Block Switching Into Administrators | No | Hard-blocks switching to any user with the Administrator role. Equal-or-higher privilege targets are also blocked automatically. |
| Allowed Switcher Roles | (none) | Roles permitted to start switching sessions. Leave all unchecked to require edit_users capability (WordPress default). See Allowed Switcher Roles. |
| Session Duration | 48 hours | How long the signed switch cookie stays valid (1–168 hours). See Session Duration. |
Enable User Switching defaults to Yes — switching is available as soon as the plugin is activated. Turn it off here if you'd rather require an explicit opt-in.
Integration Points
Controls where the switch action buttons appear in the WordPress UI.
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Profile Screen Switch | Yes | Shows a "Switch to this user" button on user profile edit screens. |
| WooCommerce Order Screen Switch | Yes | Shows a switch button on WooCommerce order screens for quick customer impersonation. |
Advanced Tab
Session Experience
Customise the visual indicators and redirect behaviour during a switched session.
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Enable Front-end Bar | Yes | Shows a persistent "Viewing as" bar at the top of every frontend page while switched. See Frontend Bar. |
| Bar Color | #2E266D | Background colour of the frontend bar. |
| Bar Message | Viewing as {user} | Text shown in the bar. Use {user} to insert the switched user's display name. |
| Show Avatar | Yes | Displays the switched user's avatar inside the frontend bar. |
| Enable Front-end Quick Search | No | Adds a user search field inside the frontend bar for switching directly from the frontend. |
| Enable Floating Switch Button | Yes | Shows a floating switch-back button on every page during a switched session. See Floating Button. |
| Switch Button Label | Switch Back | Label text on the floating button. |
| Switch Button Color | #6347EB | Background colour of the floating button. |
| Switch Button Position | Bottom Right | Screen position of the floating button. Options: Bottom Right, Bottom Left, Top Right, Top Left. |
| Admin Redirect URL After Switch | (empty) | Optional URL to redirect to immediately after a switch starts. Leave empty for smart redirect behaviour. See Admin Redirect. |
Advanced Security
Apply technical restrictions on top of the role and capability checks.
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Re-authenticate For Privileged Targets | No | Requires the switcher to confirm their password before switching into administrator-level accounts. Disabled automatically when Block Admin Targets is on. See Re-Authentication. |
| IP Allowlist | (empty) | Only allow switching from these IP addresses. Comma or newline separated. Leave empty to allow all IPs. See IP Allowlist. |
| Lock Specific User IDs | (empty) | Comma-separated user IDs that cannot be switched to, regardless of any other setting. See Locked Users. |
| Idle Timeout (minutes) | 0 | Automatically switch back after this many minutes of inactivity. Set to 0 to disable. See Idle Timeout. |
| Scheduled Access Window | No | Restrict switching to a specific daily time range. See Scheduled Window. |
| Window Start | 00:00 | Start time of the permitted switching window (24-hour format, site timezone). |
| Window End | 23:59 | End time of the permitted switching window (24-hour format, site timezone). |
Notifications Tab
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Send Email On Each Switch Event | No | Sends an email every time a switch starts or ends. See Notifications. |
| Send Weekly Digest | No | Delivers a weekly summary of all switching activity to the configured address. |
| Notification Email Address | (site admin email) | Destination address for event alerts and weekly digest emails. |
Audit Tab
| Setting | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Auto Purge Retention (Days) | 30 | Log records older than this many days are automatically deleted. Range: 1–3650. See Audit Log. |
The Audit tab also contains the live log table with actor, target, event type, IP, URL, user agent, and timestamp columns. Logs can be filtered and exported as CSV or JSON directly from this tab.
License Tab
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| License Key | Paste your SwitchGuard Pro license key and click Activate License. An active license enables automatic updates and support access. See License. |