Compact Archives

The built-in WordPress archives widget is great for new blogs, but it doesn’t look as good for more established blogs like WPBeginner. Compact Archives displays the monthly archive of posts in a more compact form rather than the usual long list. It can be shown as a compact block suitable for the body of an archives page:

2009: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2008: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2007: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

or in an even more compact form to fit a sidebar:

2009: J F M A M J J A S O N D
2008: J F M A M J J A S O N D
2007: J F M A M J J A S O N D

or something in between:

2009: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12
2008: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12
2007: 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12

Compact Archive plugin works seamlessly with Gutenberg Block Editor, Classic Editor, and WordPress widgets.

What’s Next

If you like this plugin, then consider checking out our other projects:

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Visit WPBeginner to learn from our WordPress Tutorials and find out about other best WordPress plugins.

Like all plugins, Compact Archives is only available for self-hosted WordPress sites. So YES you need to switch from WordPress.com to WordPress.org in order to use this plugin on your WordPress site. For more details, see the infographic on Self hosted WordPress.org vs Free WordPress.com

If you like this plugin, then please leave a good rating. For support just ask the questions here in the support forum.

Credits

This plugin was originally created by Rob Marsh and Aldolat added a widget for it. WPBeginner adopted the plugin and took the responsibility of keeping it updated.