How to Restore the Get Shortlink Button in WordPress 4.4

Among the many changes in WordPress 4.4 in an effort to clean the interface, the Get Shortlink button is hidden from view. If you want to restore the button, check out the Shorter Links plugin developed by Rob Allen.

In addition to restoring the Get Shortlink button, it gives users the ability to use custom text that overrides the default URL.

Shorter Links Settings
Shorter Links Settings

If all you need is the button without additional functionality, the Bring Back The Get Shortlink Button plugin by Thorsten Frommen, is a great alternative with a descriptive name. To restore the button without using a plugin, add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file.

add_filter( 'get_shortlink', function( $shortlink ) {return $shortlink;} );

Get Shortlink is a good example of WordPress hiding functionality without removing it. This allows developers to create plugins like those mentioned above to cater to users who rely on the button’s existence.

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22 responses to “How to Restore the Get Shortlink Button in WordPress 4.4”

  1. call me slow but i really don’t understand how adding the button back actually provides any additional functionality. As far as i can tell it just adds an extra click.

    Also not sure how the custom text is different from the edit button.

  2. I am confused. Why do we need to get the button back if the original reason of removing the button was to clean the interface?

  3. A good reason to have the short link available is when manually creating eBlasts (where a long link sometimes won’t work, and isn’t needed for SEO purposes).

    Thank you for posting on how to return it simply through a function aadd_filter. Greatly appreciated! ;-)

  4. I would prefer to have kept the Shortlink button.

    I don’t want the additional clutter of more plugins. Nor do I want to lift the hood and insert code. Granted, it isn’t that much.

    Perhaps we could have options as to which features are visible and available?

  5. Having the default shortlink is basically useless. If you use a shortlink plugin, that generates actual shortlinks, then the shortlink button comes back all by itself, magically. Perfect solution as is.

      • i think what he’s saying is that any shortlink button is actually unaffected by this change, only the get link button was removed as is useless simply because the full link is clickable and therefore copiable.

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