WordPress | Disable Comments and Trackbacks Site-Wide

1. Turn comments off in Settings → Discussion

Recommended: auto-close after 0 days

This one setting closes comments on every existing post and page as soon as the front end loads. The default article settings cover new content and trackbacks.

1. Log in to the WordPress dashboard.
2. Go to Settings → Discussion.
3. Under Default article settings:
   • Uncheck “Allow people to submit comments on new articles”.
   • Uncheck “Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new articles”.
4. Under Other comment settings:
   • Check Automatically close comments on articles older than.
   • Set the number to 0 days.
5. Click Save Changes.

What this does:

• New posts and pages will not allow comments or trackbacks.
• Existing content is treated as closed on every page load. WordPress checks the 0-day rule dynamically, so you do not wait on a cron job or a bulk edit.
• Trackbacks and pingbacks are blocked on future content. The code in section 2 also forces existing pings closed.

Optional: write closed status into the database

Use this when you want comment_status = 'closed' and ping_status = 'closed' stored on every post. That helps on very large sites, or if a theme or plugin reads the raw post fields instead of comments_open(). Skip it for a typical site. The 0-day setting already closes comments on the front end.

1. Go to Posts → All Posts. Repeat later for Pages and any custom post types that support comments.
2. Open Screen Options and raise items per page (for example, 200).
3. Select all items → Bulk actions → Edit → Apply.
4. Set Comments to Do not allow.
5. Set Pings to Do not allow.
6. Click Update.

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2. Permanent kill-switch (must-use plugin)

Add this after the Discussion settings. It overrides comment and trackback behavior even if someone later changes the 0-day setting, and it covers cases the Discussion screen cannot (admin UI, direct POSTs to wp-comments-post.php, leftover comments in the database).

Where to add it: create wp-content/mu-plugins/tinyfrog-disable-comments.php. A must-use plugin stays active even if the theme changes. You can paste the same functions into a child theme functions.php instead, but the MU plugin is the better home.

<?php
/**
 * Plugin Name: Tiny Frog Disable Comments
 * Description: Completely disable comments and trackbacks site-wide.
 */

if ( ! defined( 'ABSPATH' ) ) {
	exit;
}

/**
 * 1. Remove comment and trackback support from every post type.
 */
function tinyfrog_disable_comments_post_type_support() {
	$post_types = get_post_types( array(), 'names' );

	foreach ( $post_types as $post_type ) {
		if ( post_type_supports( $post_type, 'comments' ) ) {
			remove_post_type_support( $post_type, 'comments' );
		}

		if ( post_type_supports( $post_type, 'trackbacks' ) ) {
			remove_post_type_support( $post_type, 'trackbacks' );
		}
	}
}
add_action( 'admin_init', 'tinyfrog_disable_comments_post_type_support' );

/**
 * 2. Force comments and pings closed (covers the 0-day setting and theme/plugin attempts).
 */
function tinyfrog_disable_comments_status( $open, $post_id ) {
	return false;
}
add_filter( 'comments_open', 'tinyfrog_disable_comments_status', 20, 2 );
add_filter( 'pings_open', 'tinyfrog_disable_comments_status', 20, 2 );

/**
 * 3. Hide existing comments on the front end. Rows stay in the database.
 */
function tinyfrog_disable_comments_hide_existing( $comments ) {
	return array();
}
add_filter( 'comments_array', 'tinyfrog_disable_comments_hide_existing', 10, 2 );

/**
 * 4. Remove Comments from wp-admin.
 */
function tinyfrog_disable_comments_admin_cleanup() {
	remove_menu_page( 'edit-comments.php' );

	global $pagenow;
	if ( 'edit-comments.php' === $pagenow ) {
		wp_safe_redirect( admin_url() );
		exit;
	}

	remove_meta_box( 'dashboard_recent_comments', 'dashboard', 'normal' );

	if ( is_admin_bar_showing() ) {
		remove_action( 'admin_bar_menu', 'wp_admin_bar_comments_menu', 60 );
	}
}
add_action( 'admin_menu', 'tinyfrog_disable_comments_admin_cleanup', 999 );
add_action( 'admin_init', 'tinyfrog_disable_comments_admin_cleanup' );
add_action( 'init', 'tinyfrog_disable_comments_admin_cleanup' );

/**
 * 5. Block direct POST submissions to wp-comments-post.php.
 */
function tinyfrog_block_comment_post() {
	$request_uri = isset( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] ) ? $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] : '';

	if ( isset( $_POST['comment_post_ID'] ) || false !== strpos( $request_uri, 'wp-comments-post.php' ) ) {
		wp_die(
			'Comments are disabled on this site.',
			'Comments Disabled',
			array( 'response' => 410 )
		);
	}
}
add_action( 'init', 'tinyfrog_block_comment_post' );

What the code does

Part	Effect
1. Post type support	Removes the comment and trackback features from every post type in wp-admin.
2. comments_open / pings_open	Returns false on every request, including existing content and the 0-day setting.
3. Hide existing comments	Front end shows no old comments. Nothing is deleted from the database.
4. Admin cleanup	Removes the Comments menu, the dashboard widget, and the admin-bar comments icon. Visiting edit-comments.php redirects to the dashboard.
5. Block POST	A direct submit to wp-comments-post.php gets a 410 response instead of inserting a comment.

Safe to leave in place. It is idempotent: running it on a site that already has comments closed does not hurt anything.

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3. Optional WP-CLI database update

For a large site, bulk-edit in wp-admin is slow. After the Discussion settings and the MU plugin, you can write closed status to every post and page with:

wp post update $(wp post list --post_type=post,page --format=ids) --comment_status=closed --ping_status=closed

Add other post type slugs to --post_type= if the site has custom types that still show open in the database. This is optional. The 0-day setting plus the kill-switch already stop submissions.

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4. Confirm it worked

1. View a post or page on the front end. There should be no comment form and no trackback / pingback UI.
2. In wp-admin, Settings → Discussion should still show comments and pingbacks unchecked, and auto-close set to 0 days.
3. With the MU plugin in place, the Comments item should be gone from the left admin menu and from the admin bar.
4. Optional: POST to /wp-comments-post.php. You should get a 410 “Comments Disabled” response, not a new comment in the database.

Existing comments stay in the database. They are hidden and cannot accept replies.