How to Limit the Number of Archive Months Displayed in WordPress

Does your WordPress archive list go on forever? If the answer is yes, you may want to limit the number of archive months displayed in WordPress.

When you’ve been blogging for years like we have here at WPBeginner, you’ll notice that your monthly archives list will become too long. And a mile-long list of dates isn’t the most user-friendly or visually appealing way to navigate your content.

In this article, we’ll show you how to limit the number of archive months displayed in WordPress.

We’ll share three different methods and you can use the quick links below to jump straight to the method you prefer:

Method 1. Limit Number of Archive Months with Plugin

This method is easier and it is recommended for all users.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Collapsing Archives plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Appearance » Widgets page and add the ‘Collapsing Archives’ widget to your sidebar.

You can follow our guide on how to add and use widgets in WordPress for more instructions.

Once you add the widget, the widget menu will expand to show its settings.

The Collapsing Archives widget uses JavaScript to collapse your archive links into collapsible yearly links. Your users can click on years to expand them to view monthly archives. You can even make monthly archives collapsible and allow users to see post titles underneath.

Review the widget settings to suit your needs and then click on the ‘Save’ button to store your settings.

You can now visit your website to see the widget in action.

Method 2. Replace Default Archives with Compact Archives

This method provides a cleaner alternative to the default archives widget by beautifully displaying them in a compact, more presentable way.

First, you need to install and activate the Compact Archives plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit Appearance » Widgets page and add the ‘Compact Archives’ widget to your sidebar.

Compact Archives offers three different styles for your compact archives. You can choose from block, initials, or numeric.

Once you’re happy with how it looks, don’t forget to click on the ‘Save’ button to store your widget settings.

You can now visit your website to see the compact archives in action.

You can also use the Compact Archives plugin to create a custom archives page on your site.

For more details, see our guide on how to create compact archives in WordPress.

Method 3. Manually Limit Number of Archive Months in WordPress

This method requires you to add code to your WordPress theme files. If you haven’t done this before, then take a look at our guide on how to copy and paste code in WordPress.

You will need to add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file or a code snippets plugin.

// Function to get archives list with limited months
function wpb_limit_archives() { 
 
$my_archives = wp_get_archives(array(
    'type'=>'monthly', 
    'limit'=>6,
    'echo'=>0
));
     
return $my_archives; 
 
} 
 
// Create a shortcode
add_shortcode('wpb_custom_archives', 'wpb_limit_archives'); 
 
// Enable shortcode execution in text widget
add_filter('widget_text', 'do_shortcode'); 

We recommending adding code using WPCode, the best WordPress code snippets plugin. It allows you to safely add custom code in WordPress, without editing your functions.php file.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the free WPCode plugin. If you need help, see this guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once you’ve activated the plugin, go to Code Snippets » + Add Snippet from the WordPress dashboard.

Then, hover your mouse over the ‘Add Your Custom Code (New Snippet)’ option and click the ‘Use snippet’ button.

From here, you can add a title for your snippet, which can be anything to help you remember what the code is for.

Next, paste the code from above into the ‘Code Preview’ box and select ‘PHP Snippet’ as the code type from the dropdown menu.

After that, simply toggle the switch from ‘Inactive’ to ‘Active’ and click the ‘Save Snippet’ button.

This code fetches the archives list and limits it to past 6 months only. It then creates a shortcode and enables shortcode in text widgets.

You can now go to Appearance » Widgets page and add a ‘Text’ widget to your sidebar. Switch to the text mode and add your shortcode like this:

<ul>
[wpb_custom_archives]
</ul>

Don’t forget to save your widget settings.

You can now visit your website to see your custom archives list in action.

Video Tutorial

If you prefer to follow along with a video tutorial, check out this WPBeginner video on how to limit archive months displayed in WordPress:

That’s all, we hope this article helped you learn how to limit the number of archive months displayed in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to remove the archive page in WordPress or check out our expert picks of the best internal linking plugins for WordPress.

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