Yes, you can export WordPress authors to Excel. The cleanest way, with admin access, is the WordPress REST API users endpoint, which returns each author with their name, username, role, and bio; you convert that response to a CSV or Excel file. If you do not have full backend access, you can also pull authors from a full content export, where each post carries the name of the author who wrote it. Either way, the fields worth exporting are the author name, username, email, role, bio, and a count or list of their posts, because in a migration you usually need authors mapped to the content they wrote, not just a list of names. One caution up front: authors include email addresses, which are personal data, so keep the file secure. WPBuildAI scans the site and returns the authors with their posts, ready to export.
Take the export from a version you can name: WordPress 7.0 arrived on 20 May 2026, followed by 7.0.1 on 9 July and 7.0.2 on 17 July, and author and role handling is exactly the sort of thing worth re-checking after a core upgrade rather than assuming it carried across.
Which author fields to export
Before the method, decide what to export, because a useful file has the right columns and not a jumble. For a basic author list you want the display name, username, role, and bio. For a migration you also want the email, so accounts can be recreated, and crucially a link to the posts each author wrote, usually by an author ID. Deciding these fields first avoids two opposite mistakes: exporting too little and having to redo it, or exporting everything indiscriminately and ending up with a file full of personal data you do not need. The bio matters more than people expect, because author pages and bylines can carry SEO weight.
With admin access: the REST API
If you have admin access, the tidiest route is the WordPress REST API, whose users endpoint returns authors as structured data with their fields. An authenticated request returns the list, which you then convert to CSV or Excel by mapping each field to a column. The advantage is control: you choose the fields and handle many authors without clicking through the admin. The API requires authentication to read user data, and rightly so, because it is personal information. The same structured approach applies to other data, as in extracting data without Python, and the Web Almanac 2024 (HTTP Archive) is a reminder of how much a site does per request, so pull in batches if there are many users.
Without admin access: from the content
If you cannot reach the admin, you can still recover the authors from the content itself. Every published post shows its author in the byline, so a crawl of the public posts collects the author names and which posts they wrote. This does not give you private fields like email, but it does give you the author-to-post mapping, which is often the part that matters for a migration. It is the same public-data approach used to pull other content when the backend is closed. The limit is that you get what is publicly shown, the names and bylines, not the account details, so use this route when the mapping is what you need and the private fields are not.
Map authors to their posts
This is the part that turns a name list into something useful: linking each author to the posts they wrote. A list of author names alone is rarely the point; what a migration needs is the byline, so the new site shows the right author on each article. That link runs through an author ID, and it is exactly what a careless export drops. Export the author ID on both the authors file and the posts, so the new platform can reconnect them. Because content and its signals are what rank, as Backlinko’s analysis found, keeping the byline intact preserves the author signals that author pages and article credits carry.
Authors are personal data
It is worth pausing here, because an author export is not an ordinary file: it contains names and email addresses, which are personal data. Treat it accordingly. Keep it somewhere secure, do not pass it over unprotected channels, and export only the fields you actually need for the migration. When the file has done its job, delete it rather than leaving copies around. This is not a formality: respecting the data of the people who wrote for you is part of handling the migration professionally. The same care applies to any export with personal details, such as customers in exporting WooCommerce orders.
Step by step
- Decide the fields: name, username, email, role, bio, and post mapping.
- With admin access: use the REST API users endpoint.
- Without admin access: collect authors and bylines from the public posts.
- Export the author ID on both authors and posts to keep the link.
- Convert to CSV or Excel, one column per field.
- Keep the file secure and delete it once it has served its purpose.
Worked example: authors for a migration
Take a blog with 15 authors moving to a new platform, where every article must keep its byline. With admin access, the authors are exported via the REST API: name, username, email, role, bio, and author ID. The posts are exported separately, carrying the same author ID, so the link between writer and article stays intact. The export is checked: every post has an author, and every author maps to their posts. The file, which holds emails, is kept in secure storage, used for the import, then deleted. On the new platform, authors are recreated and reconnected to their posts by the ID, and the bios populate the author pages. The bylines survive the move, because the authors were exported mapped to their content, not as a bare list.
Common mistakes
- Exporting a list of author names with no link to their posts.
- Dropping the author ID, so authors and posts cannot be reconnected.
- Leaving the file with emails lying around instead of securing and deleting it.
- Missing contributors who wrote only a few posts.
- Forgetting the bios, which author pages can use for SEO.
Key points
Yes, you can export WordPress authors to Excel: with admin access through the REST API users endpoint, or from the content itself when the backend is closed. Export the name, username, email, role, bio, and, most importantly, the link from each author to the posts they wrote, because a migration needs the byline, not a bare name list. Keep the author ID on both the authors and the posts so they can be reconnected. Treat the file as personal data, since it holds emails: keep it secure and delete it when done. WPBuildAI scans the site and returns the authors with their posts, ready to export. Send your site URL for a free assessment.
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