How to hide or remove meta boxes in the single post og page screen

How to hide the meta boxes

…..but still having them accessible through the Screen Options tab.

I was wondering how to hide specific meta boxes in the post screen as it would help my client see less boxes clutter the screen.
So I went searching and came across code mentioned at the bottom of this thread:
https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/15376/how-to-set-default-screen-options

The code shows how to hide the meta boxes with a similar result of unclicking the screen options boxes.
I also removed a few meta boxes through code on can not deselect through the screen options.

The result:

Using the following code one can hide most meta boxes in the single page or post screen. Add the code to your functions file or even better a code snippet plugin. Comment out the ones you would like to keep visible (or just remove them).

// At http://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/15376/how-to-set-default-screen-options bottom comment the following code $hidden is mentioned.
// Hides meta boxes. Turn them on through the Screen Options.
add_filter( 'hidden_meta_boxes', 'custom_hidden_meta_boxes' );
function custom_hidden_meta_boxes( $hidden ) {
    // Hide meta boxes on the single Post screen
    // Left column  
   $hidden[] = 'postexcerpt';       // Post Excerpts
   $hidden[] = 'trackbacksdiv';     // Send Trackbacks
   $hidden[] = 'postcustom';        // Custom Fields
   $hidden[] = 'commentstatusdiv';  // Discussion
   $hidden[] = 'commentsdiv';       // Comments - Add comment
   $hidden[] = 'slugdiv';           // Slug
   $hidden[] = 'authordiv';		    // Author
   
   // Right column
   $hidden[] = 'submitdiv';		    // Publish
   $hidden[] = 'formatdiv';		    // Format (for themes that use Post Format)
   $hidden[] = 'categorydiv';	    // Categories
   $hidden[] = 'tagsdiv-post_tag';	// Tags
   $hidden[] = 'postimagediv';	    // Featured Image 
    
    // Hide meta boxes on the single Page screen
    // Left Column
    $hidden[] = 'revisionsdiv';   	// Revisions
    $hidden[] = 'postcustom'; 		// Custom Fields
    $hidden[] = 'commentstatusdiv'; // Discussion		
    $hidden[] = 'commentsdiv'; 		// Comments - Add comment
    $hidden[] = 'slugdiv';          // Slug
    $hidden[] = 'authordiv';		// Author
    
    // Right column
    $hidden[] = 'submitdiv';		// Publish
    $hidden[] = 'pageparentdiv'; 	// Page Attributes
    $hidden[] = 'postimagediv'; 	// Featured Image 
    
        return $hidden;
}

How to remove meta boxes

…and removing them from the screen options tab.
https://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/remove_meta_box

function remove_page_fields() {
 remove_meta_box( 'commentstatusdiv' , 'page' , 'normal' ); //removes comments status
 remove_meta_box( 'commentsdiv' , 'page' , 'normal' );      //removes comments
 remove_meta_box( 'authordiv' , 'page' , 'normal' );        //removes author 
}
add_action( 'admin_menu' , 'remove_page_fields' );

Switch out page with post to remove post edit meta boxes.

Another example

Removing dashboard widgets

function remove_dashboard_widgets() {
 remove_meta_box( 'dashboard_right_now', 'dashboard', 'normal' ); // Right Now
 remove_meta_box( 'dashboard_recent_comments', 'dashboard', 'normal' ); // Recent Comments
 remove_meta_box( 'dashboard_incoming_links', 'dashboard', 'normal' ); // Incoming Links
 remove_meta_box( 'dashboard_plugins', 'dashboard', 'normal' ); // Plugins
 remove_meta_box( 'dashboard_quick_press', 'dashboard', 'side' ); // Quick Press
 remove_meta_box( 'dashboard_recent_drafts', 'dashboard', 'side' ); // Recent Drafts
 remove_meta_box( 'dashboard_primary', 'dashboard', 'side' ); // WordPress blog
 remove_meta_box( 'dashboard_secondary', 'dashboard', 'side' ); // Other WordPress News
 // use 'dashboard-network' as the second parameter to remove widgets from a network dashboard.
}
add_action( 'wp_dashboard_setup', 'remove_dashboard_widgets' );

How to hide All Post and All Pages columns.

…..but still having them accessible through the Screen Options tab.

Got to take a pass for this one for now… if you got a solution please let me know and I will add the code for it here.

A comment was made:
“You speak of how to remove meta boxes, but there are times when those boxes are needed, just not immediately visible. In example, the default_hidden_meta_boxes hook will filter the meta boxes to hide on default, meaning the user can override the setting. And the hidden_meta_boxes hook will filter what meta boxes are to be hidden when the page is loaded (without regard to the user’s settings). It’s worth mentioning because the naming convention of hooks is quite helpful in answering your question regarding column visibility: check out the hooks default_hidden_columns and hidden_columns.”

How to remove All Post and All Pages columns

One can remove/delete columns by using the code unset. They are also removed from the screen options tab.

// Remove the following post or page columns
function my_columns_filter( $columns ) {
 unset($columns['title']);
 unset($columns['author']);
 unset($columns['categories']);
 unset($columns['tags']);
 unset($columns['comments']);
 unset($columns['date']);
 return $columns;
}
add_filter( 'manage_edit-post_columns', 'my_columns_filter', 10, 1 );
// To remove page columns use: manage_edit-page_columns

Resources:

https://wordpress.org/support/topic/remove-columns-from-the-user-admin-list-page?replies=3
https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/19180/how-to-remove-a-column-from-the-posts-page
https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/15376/how-to-set-default-screen-options
https://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/remove-wordpress-meta-boxes/

Originally published 15 July 2016.