Hiding posts - WP Hide Post not working

Question

I frequently publish posts that I need to be hidden. They need to be published, so that someone who has their url can go to them, but I don't want them showing up on my homepage, in my recent posts widget, on my blog page, in my categories etc. I know I can normally use the WP Hide Post plugin for this, but somehow that isn't working for my site. When I create a new post and choose all the hide options WP Hide Post offers, the post still shows up on my blog page (which isn't my homepage).

I've looked around here and found some similar topics to hide posts using code, but only to hide posts from one location, for example from the recent posts widget or from the homepage or from...

I'm searching for a way to hide them from practically everywhere without having to add several lines of code each time I publish a post that needs to be hidden.

Would really appreciate it if someone could help me. Bummed that the WP Hide Post plugin doesn't work for me:/

Thanks!

PS I'm know publishing those posts as pages using WP Hide Post to hide the pages, this works, but it clutters up my pages list.

Answer 1

here is a code example to hide post. However you need to use a custom meta for this to work. So, add a new meta with the post you want to hide. Use meta key name as 'hidethis' and use value '1'. Don't use the quote marks, just the texts.

Next this is to add a code to your themes functions.php. You can edit it directly from your wp-admin -> themes -> editor page. Just find the file name (on right side) functions.php and add the following code, then hit update button.

add_action( 'pre_get_posts', 'pre_get_posts_127256', 9999 );
function pre_get_posts_127256($q){
    if( is_admin() )
        return;

    if( is_singular() )
        return;

    $mq = $q->get('meta_query');
    $nm = array('key' => 'hidethis', 'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS');
    $mq[] = $nm;

    $q->set('meta_query', $mq);
}

This should be hiding the post u added meta key 'hidethis' with a value.