How to Exclude the Current Post from the Latest Posts Widget in WordPress

You’ve probably seen this before 👀

You’re reading a blog post, scroll down…
And the Latest Posts widget shows the exact same post you’re already on.

Not broken, just awkward.

WordPress doesn’t give us a native option to exclude the current post from widgets. But with a simple PHP snippet added via WPCode Lite, we can fix this in minutes, no plugin upload needed.

Let’s do it the smart way 💡

Why This Happens

The default Latest Posts widget runs its own query.
It doesn’t automatically know which post you’re currently viewing, so it includes everything, even the current post.

That leads to:

Repetitive content
Confusing navigation
Slightly unpolished UX

We’re about to clean that up.

The Solution (WPCode Lite + PHP Snippet)

Instead of creating a standalone plugin, we’ll use WPCode Lite to inject a PHP snippet that:

Hooks into pre_get_posts
Runs only on single post pages
Targets widget queries only
Excludes the current post using post__not_in
Leaves the main query completely untouched

Zero risk. Zero clutter.

PHP Snippet (Add This in WPCode Lite)

Add a new PHP snippet in WPCode Lite and paste this code:

<?php
/**
 * Plugin Name: Exclude Current Post from Latest Posts Widget
 * Description: Automatically excludes the current post from appearing in the Latest Posts widget
 * Version: 1.0
 * Author: Syed Hussaini - MyKnowledgeBuddy.com
 */

// Prevent direct access
if (!defined('ABSPATH')) {
    exit;
}

/**
 * Exclude current post from widget queries
 */
function exclude_current_post_from_widgets($query) {
    // Only run on frontend, not admin
    if (is_admin()) {
        return;
    }

    // Only modify widget queries (not main query)
    if (!$query->is_main_query()) {
        // Check if we're on a single post page
        if (is_singular()) {
            $current_post_id = get_queried_object_id();
            
            // Exclude current post from the query
            $post__not_in = $query->get('post__not_in');
            
            if (!is_array($post__not_in)) {
                $post__not_in = array();
            }
            
            if (!in_array($current_post_id, $post__not_in)) {
                $post__not_in[] = $current_post_id;
                $query->set('post__not_in', $post__not_in);
            }
        }
    }
}
add_action('pre_get_posts', 'exclude_current_post_from_widgets');

That’s all the logic you need.