Widget areas are special places on your site that can accept blocks. These vary by theme but are typically areas like your sidebar or footer.
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Themes that support the Site Editor do not use widgets, so you won’t see Appearance → Widgets in your dashboard. Instead, you can edit all of your site in one place at Appearance → Editor. Click here to learn how to use the Site Editor.
In this guide
The most common widget areas are the footer and sidebar, but you may see others depending on the theme you are using.
To add a widget to your site, go to Appearance → Widgets.
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If you choose to go to Customize → Widgets, please note that the controls may look different from the guide below.
Click either of the + block inserter buttons to add a widget.
To view the complete list of blocks you can add, click Browse all. You may use the search box at the top to find a block easily, or scroll down to browse all the blocks by category.
Click any block to add it to your widget area and click Update when you’re ready to save your changes to the site.
After adding a block, click on it once and a toolbar will appear with several options specific to that block. For even more options, click the … (three dots) to choose from:
- Show more settings: Access additional settings specific to that block.
- Copy: Copy the block to later paste it somewhere else.
- Duplicate: Make a duplicate of the block appear immediately below the one you’re working on.
- Insert before: Insert a new block immediately before the block you’re working on.
- Insert after: Insert a new block immediately after the block you’re working on.
- Move to: Move the block to a specific point in that widget area.
- Group: Add the block to a Group block.
- Remove block: Delete the block from your widget area.
After clicking on a block there are additional options specific to the block in the Block Settings sidebar menu. If you do not see the Block Settings sidebar menu click the Settings cog icon at the top of the screen.
If you added a widget to one area, but later decide to move it to a different area, follow these steps:
- Click on the block.
- In the toolbar that appears, click the Move to widget area icon (it looks like a squiggly arrow.)
- Select the widget area to move the block to.
To remove a block you have added to a widget area, click on the block once and select the … (three dots) in the toolbar. Then, click Remove Block:
You can set widgets to appear only on certain pages or to be hidden on certain pages.
To access the Visibility settings for block widgets:
- Select the block.
- Scroll to the bottom of the Block Settings sidebar. If you do not see the Block Settings sidebar menu click the Settings cog icon at the top of the screen.
- If you’re using Customize → Widgets to edit your widgets, click on the … (three dots) on the right side of the block toolbar and select Show more settings.
- Expand the Advanced tab and click Add new rule under “Visibility,” as shown below.
You can access the Visibility settings for legacy widgets by clicking the Visibility button at the bottom of the widget.
Visibility is controlled by six aspects: page type, category, tag, date, author, and taxonomy. For example, if you want the Archives widget to only appear on category archives and error pages, choose Show from the first dropdown and then add the rules “Page is 404 Error Page” and “Category is All Category Pages,” as shown here:
You can also hide widgets based on the current page. For example, if you don’t want the Archives widget to appear on search results pages, choose Hide and add the rule “Page is Search Results” like this:
If you have multiple visibility rules, you can choose whether visibility rules are handled separately or simultaneously by toggling Match all rules in block widgets or Match all conditions in legacy widgets. For example, you can display a widget only on posts that are categorized as “Summer” and also tagged with “Picnic” by setting the visibility conditions to match the rules for the category and the tag. If Match all rules (or conditions) is on, all rules must be passed (“AND”) to hide or display the widget, while if it’s off, any rule matching (“OR”) will fulfill the conditions.
