How to remove author base in WordPress

Question

Standard author links in WordPress look like: example.com/author/johnsmith

I\'d like to remove the author/ part of the URL so the username

Answer 1

I've tested this combined solution but wasn't working before regenerating of permalinks. You can do it, as brasfolio described : simply clicking save on permalink page in dashboard.

add_filter('author_rewrite_rules', 'no_author_base_rewrite_rules');
function no_author_base_rewrite_rules($author_rewrite) {
   global $wpdb;
   $author_rewrite = array();
   $authors = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT user_nicename AS nicename from $wpdb->users");   
   foreach($authors as $author) {
       $author_rewrite["({$author->nicename})/page/?([0-9]+)/?$"] = 'index.php?author_name=$matches[1]&paged=$matches[2]';
       $author_rewrite["({$author->nicename})/?$"] = 'index.php?author_name=$matches[1]';
   }  
   return $author_rewrite;
}

if( !is_admin() ) {
add_action('init', 'author_rewrite_so_22115103');
}

function author_rewrite_so_22115103() {
   global $wp_rewrite; 
   if( 'author' == $wp_rewrite->author_base ) $wp_rewrite->author_base = null;
}