Some posts do not belong in a listing — an announcement that is already featured higher up the page, a placeholder, or a post you are about to retire.
Exclude Post(s) in the Dynamic Smart Showcase widget from The Plus Addons for Elementor removes them by ID and leaves the rest of the query alone.
To check the complete feature overview documentation of The Plus Addons for Elementor Dynamic Smart Showcase widget, click here.
Requirement – This widget is a part of The Plus Addons for Elementor Pro, make sure it’s installed & activated to enjoy all its powers.
Before You Start
- Edition: Pro — Dynamic Smart Showcase is only in The Plus Addons for Elementor Pro. With the Pro plugin switched off the widget is not in the editor at all, and a page that already uses it shows nothing where the widget was.
- Widget to enable: Dynamic Smart Showcase, switched on under The Plus Addons > Widgets.
- You need published content: the widget queries your site. Posts, pages or a custom post type with published entries must already exist, or the widget prints Posts not found.
- Raise the post count: Maximum Posts Display in Content Source defaults to 1, so a freshly dropped widget shows a single post. Set it to the number you want, or to -1 for every matching post.
How to Find a Post ID
- In the WordPress dashboard, go to Posts.
- Hover over the post you want to leave out.
- Read the edit link in the status bar at the bottom of the browser. The number after
post=is the post ID.
How to Exclude It
- Select the Dynamic Smart Showcase widget on your page.
- Open the Content Source section.
- Type the post ID into Exclude Post(s). For several posts, separate the IDs with commas:
2413,2412. - Raise Maximum Posts Display if you have not already — it starts at 1.
The Result
The listing now opens with the next post in date order, Building a Reusable Header Template, and the two excluded posts are nowhere in it:
How It Behaves
- Exclusion happens in the query, so an excluded post never counts towards Maximum Posts Display — the listing still fills to the number you set.
- It works for every post type, not just posts. Use the ID shown in the edit link for that post type.
- An ID that does not exist is simply ignored — the rest of the listing is unaffected.
- Filling in Include Post(s) switches Exclude Post(s) off: with both fields set, the included IDs are shown and the exclusion is not applied. Use one field or the other.
- If everything is excluded the widget prints Posts not found.
Limitations
- The field takes IDs only. There is no way to exclude by slug, category or tag here — use Select Category or Select Tags to narrow the query instead.
- The list is static. A post you want permanently out of every listing is better handled by moving it to its own category and filtering on that.
Troubleshooting
The post is still showing
Check that you used the post ID and not the page ID of the page you are editing, and that the IDs are separated by commas with no other characters.
The grid is now empty
You may have excluded everything the query returned. Clear the field and add the IDs back one at a time.
I cannot see the post ID in the status bar
Open the post for editing instead. The ID is in the address bar after post=.
