Prevent Moving or Deleting a Block

In the WordPress Editor, your content consists of blocks. You can lock a block to prevent accidental edits, deletions, or layout changes. This guide shows you how to lock and unlock blocks to control the layout of your content.

Locking a block in the WordPress Editor prevents accidental changes to important content. It keeps key elements, like headings, call-to-action buttons, and layout sections, intact. This is especially useful when multiple users are working on the same page, as it prevents unintentional edits, deletions, or layout disruptions.

There are two levels of block locking:

• Disable Movement: the block cannot be moved to another location on the page.
• Prevent Removal: the block cannot be deleted.

Administrators and Editors can lock and unlock blocks, while Authors and Contributors cannot. Learn more about the different user roles.

Depending on the options you select when locking a block, you can disable the ability to move the block or delete it, or both. Follow these steps to lock a block:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard and navigate to the Page, Post, or Template where you want to lock the block:
   • Page: Navigate to the Pages section of your menu.
   • Post: Navigate to the Posts section of your menu.
   • Template: Navigate to Appearance → Editor and select the template.
2. Add or edit a block.
3. Click the three dots (⋮) on the right of the toolbar that appears, and select the “Lock” option from the drop-down menu.

4. Choose from the following options:
   • Lock all: lock both the ability to move the block and the ability to delete it.
   • Lock movement: prevent the block from being moved to another location on the page.
   • Lock removal: prevent the block from being deleted.
   • Apply to all blocks inside: Apply the setting to all the blocks contained within the parent block. This option will only appear if you are locking a container block (like Columns, Groups, or anything that contains other blocks.)

5. Click the “Apply” button to save your changes.

A lock icon appears on the locked block in both the toolbar and the List View in the editor.

Only Administrators and Editors can unlock a block. Follow these steps to remove a lock or adjust the lock’s settings:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to the Page, Post, or Template where the locked block appears.
3. Click the locked block, and select the lock icon from the block toolbar that appears.

4. Deselect the lock options, or adjust them, and click the “Apply” button to save your changes.

If you remove all the lock options, the lock icon disappears from the toolbar and the List View in the editor.