How to extend authentication cookie expiration time

These days I needed to extend the lifespan of the authentication cookie, and I thought I share with you how to do that.

To make this change you need to apply a filter, so add the following snippet in functions.php:

function wcr_change_cookie_expiration($expiration, $user_id, $remember) {
    $expiration = 100 * DAY_IN_SECONDS; // means 100 days and the default value is 14 days
    return $expiration;
}
add_filter('auth_cookie_expiration', 'change_cookie_expiration', 10, 3);

Alternatively, if the user has checked the “Remember Me” on login page, use this snippet:

function wcr_change_cookie_expiration($expiration, $user_id, $remember) {
    if ($remember) {
        $expiration = 100 * DAY_IN_SECONDS; // means 100 days and the default value is 14 days
    }

    return $expiration;
}
add_filter('auth_cookie_expiration', 'change_cookie_expiration', 10, 3);

Using this filter also gives you access to the $user_id variable, so you can use it to change the expiration time based on user role or any other user-specific data (see get_user_meta).