Hide Subscriber Users from BuddyPress member Directory

hide-subscribers.php

<?php
/**
 * Excludes users from BuddyPress Members list.
 *
 * @param string $qs Query string.
 * @param string $object object loop identikfier.
 *
 * @return string
 */
function bpdev_exclude_users( $qs = false, $object = false ) {

	if ( $object != 'members' ) { // hide for members only.
		return $qs;
	}

	// comma separated ids of users whom you want to exclude.
	$excluded_users = join( ',', bpdev_get_excluded_user_ids() );

	$args = wp_parse_args( $qs );

	// check if we are searching for friends list etc., do not exclude in this case.
	if ( ! empty( $args['user_id'] ) ) {
		return $qs;
	}

	if ( ! empty( $args['exclude'] ) ) {
		$args['exclude'] = $args['exclude'] . ',' . $excluded_users;
	} else {
		$args['exclude'] = $excluded_users;
	}

	$qs = build_query( $args );

	return $qs;
}

add_action( 'bp_ajax_querystring', 'bpdev_exclude_users', 20, 2 );

/**
 * Retrieves an array of user ids to exclude.
 *
 * NOTE:- It is not an efficient idea if you want to exclude thousands of users. There are better ways.
 *
 * @return array
 */
function bpdev_get_excluded_user_ids() {
	/*
	// Example:- Excluding known user ids
	$query = array(1,2,3); // Please use the actual user ids instead of 1,2,3
    */
	// Example:- Single role exclusion.
	// This excludes all subscribers. Change the role you want to exclude.
	$query = array(
		'role'   => 'subscriber', // you can change the role to any role you want to exclude.
		'fields' => 'ID'
	);

	/*
	// Example:- Multiple roles Exclusion
	$query = array(
		'role__in' => array( 'subscriber, contributor' ),  // List of roles to exclude.
		'fields'   => 'ID'
	);
   */

	/*
	// Example: Limiting to certain roles only.
	$query = array(
		'role__not_in' => array( 'subscriber, contributor' ),  // List of roles to include.
		'fields'   => 'ID'
	);
	*/

	return get_users( $query );
}

Thanks, sbrajesh, for this. It's exactly what I needed!

Thanks, unuigbee for catching this:

There is a mistake on line 33. It should be return $subscribers not return $users

As well as your suggestion for excluding multiple member types.

Thank you sbrajesh for sharing this code, and unuigbee for the adjustments for multiple roles. It now works awesome. However, it needed a mod that I literally spent half day trying to figure out (which just proves how green I am sometimes) :) so I post this for the next 'copy and paste' coder who is looking for this fix.

I could not get it to work until I changed function bpdev_get_user_ids() in the multiple roles part to
function bpdev_get_subscriber_user_ids() which then matched what was in the original code.

The multiple roles thing was huge for me, so I really appreciate that. I'm really not sure if I should have changed the other part instead (removing the word subscriber), but once I got it to work, I didn't dare touch it again. :) If it's a big deal and I should change it, please let me know.

Thanks all.

Has anyone made this work by hiding users based on Paid Memberships Pro level?

Ex: hide users with membership level 1,2,3 from BuddyPress Member Directory

Would anyone be able to help me with modifying this code so that all user roles are hidden, except for users with a specified user role?

Super late reply, but for @Hastibe and anyone else who wants to exclude all but one role, change the exclude to include.

// Helper for fetching all IDs to include. Returns an array in this example.
$included_user_ids = my_function_to_fetch_all_users_by_role();

$args = wp_parse_args( $qs );
$args['include'] = implode( ',', $included_user_ids );

$qs = build_query( $args );

I am not a developer. Can anyone tell me where to put the user IDs to include in the last post by @scottlee ? For example, if I want to exclude all user roles from the buddypress directory except a user role called "Premium", where do I put that? Can I add more than one user role? Would be great if someone could post a definitive code with an example in it. Thanks in advance to whoever does this.

I am sorry for not keeping up with the comments here. I have updated the code with examples for multiple roles exclusion. Also, I will recommend using bp_after_has_members_parse_args instead of the bp_ajax_querystring that we have used.
Here is a link to one of my old post about the same.
https://buddydev.com/hiding-users-on-buddypress-based-site/