[How to] Change Joomla Footer or Remove Powered By/CopyRight

One of the things you may want to do before launching a new website is to edit Joomla footer, to remove the Powered by Joomla message, change the copyright notice, or otherwise perform other changes to the Joomla footer module.

This is a fairly simple change, but it might be made a bit more complicated if the theme you have chosen actually overrides the default Joomla functionality.

In this guide, we'll take you through all the different ways you can use to change the Joomla footer. 

How to change or remove "powered by Joomla" footer

By default, Joomla installations contain the following message:

"Joomla! is free software released under the GNU/GPL license."

There is no need to keep this message on your website unless you want to help spread the word about the CMS. Most people, however, will want to either remove this message completely or create their own footer, maybe adding a Copyright text.

Older versions of Joomla had a different message:

"Powered by Joomla!"

Whatever the case may be, we will show you a number of different ways that you can create your own custom Joomla footer.

What is the Joomla Footer module?

By default, a Joomla installation comes with a footer module. This is a simple module that is used to display copyright information.

If you want to get rid of this information, the first thing you should do is unpublish the Footer module and see whether the information is gone. 

Removing/changing the Powered by Joomla! footer message

There are various ways to do this, the one you'll need to use depends on the version you are using, or possibly the theme you are using.

Another way of changing this it to update the code of the actual theme itself, especially if you have tried to unpublish the Joomla footer module, and the copyright information still appears.

In this case, you might need to tweak the code to fix this. 

There are two ways to change the code in Joomla, you either edit the code directly, or create a template override.

If you edit the code directly, then update the theme, your code changes will be lost. If you perform a template override, the code will persist even after the original template is updated.

Joomla 3

We're going to do the change in the Protostar template. In this case, we can't perform a template override, because the change needs to be performed on the index.php file directly (this is where the copyright information exists).

• Go to Extensions > Templates > Templates
• Click on Protostar details and files
• Click on index.php
• Scroll to the bottom until you find the <!-- Footer --> in the code
• Edit this line &copy; <?php echo date('Y'); ?> <?php echo $sitename; ?> to your preferred information

As you can see above, the code displays the current year through the PHP date() function and then displays the name of the site. You can change this code to whatever you want to display in the footer.

If you remove all that line, nothing will be displayed in the footer.

Joomla 2.5

This is a quick overview of the steps of how to change or remove the Joomla footer:

• Find the Template Manager – Customize Template in Template Manager
• Edit the Template Master File in Template Manager
• Remove/Change Joomla 2.5 footer code in Template Manager

1.  Find the Template Manager – Customize Template

• Login to your Joomla 2.5 Administrator backend
• Click  on Extensions, Template Manager
• Switch to the ‘Templates’ tab

2.  Edit the Template Master File in Template Manager

• Scroll down and click on ‘Beez_20 Details and Files’
• Under Template Master Files, Click on ‘Edit main Page templates’

3.  Change/Remove Joomla 2.5 footer code in Template Manager

• In the Template Manager: Edit File – “Editing file ‘Index.php” in template “beez_20″‘
• Search for the code:

 <div id=”footer”>

<jdoc:include type=”modules” name=”position-14″ />

<p>

<?php echo JText::_(‘TPL_BEEZ2_POWERED_BY’);?> <a href=”https://www.joomla.org/”>Joomla!®</a>

</p>

</div><!– end footer –>

a.  If you want to Remove the Joomla 2.5 footer:

• Change the code to:

 <div id=”footer”>

<jdoc:include type=”modules” name=”position-14″ />

</div><!– end footer –>

• Click on ‘Save & Close’

b.  If you want to Change the Joomla 2.5 footer text to show the Copyright symbol, current year, Your Name, and a link to your website:

• Change the code to:

 <div id=”footer”>

<jdoc:include type=”modules” name=”position-14″ />

<p>
 © Copyright <?php echo date(“Y”);?> DART Creations <a href=’https://www.collectiveray.com/’>Joomla Tutorials</a>

</p>

</div><!– end footer –>

Change the code to your own details of your own website if you want to or simple remove it completely

• Click on ‘Save & Close’

After that you can refresh your Joomla 2.5 website and you will see the footer changed.

Remove Joomla Templates by JoomlaShine

If you are using a template by JoomlaShine, you can chose the remove the text from the index.php file. Remember to backup the file before doing any changes just in case you make a mistake.

"Joomla Templates by JoomlaShine"

Using ftp or a file explorer go to the /templates directory, go to the template name folder e.g. jsn_glamo_free, open the index.php file and at the botton find the following and remove it completely. Save the file and upload it, and replace the old index.php file. That should be all you need to do!

<div id="jsn-brand">
  <a href="https://www.joomlashine.com" title="Joomla templates by Joomlashine" target="_blank"><strong>Joomla templates</strong></a> by Joomlashine
</div>

If you're looking for a good template, have you seen our list of Free Joomla Templates?

Joomla 1.5

With Joomla 1.5 if you want to remove the footer, simple go to Extensions > Module Manager and unpublish the footer module. If you want to change the text, go to the language directory, go to the folder of the language you want to change, find the mod_footer.ini and change the text in there to whatever you want your text in the footer to be! 

Joomla 1.0

To remove this from the default (1.0.x) template, you need to browse via ftp or otherwise to the file includes/version.php. Open it with your favourite editor, find the $URL line and change it to your liking. If you want nothing at all leave the line as $URL = '' (2 apostrophes). Do not remove the whole line because you might break your template.

This applies to the default template (rhuk_solarflare_ii). Other templates are likely to not use the URL and use their own links. You would have to use some kind of software on your local installation which looks within text files, and search for the text you want to change. Once you find it, you can change it to suit your needs.

Other Solutions

These are solutions suggested on the Joomla forums. These may or may not apply for your case.

1. Within your template's index.php file.
2. Within the /includes/footer.php file.
3. Within the language files.

A little explanation of how these methods are inter-related:

Each template set lives in its own sub-folder within /templates//
A template consists of:
  an index.php (not to be confused with the scripts index.php in the installation root.
  a css file usually css_template.css contained within /templates//css/
  additionally image files within /templates//images/

/includes/footer.php is part of the core distribution of the script.

Your template's index.php file 'includes' - programmer speak for merges - footer.php into the final output of the page.
footer.php itself retrieves the Copyright text from the languages files.

There are pros and cons to either of these strategies, which I will explain as I go.

1. Editing your template's index.php so as not to include includes/footer.php and to simply place your text directly into the template.
Pros: Quick easy and efficient. It will also survive any upgrade of the core installation.
Cons: If you change templates, or use multiple templates you will have to replicate your edits throughout multiple templates.
Specifics:
Find and remove this line from the file /templates//index.php

2. Editing includes/footer.php so it does not retrieve the copyright info from the language files. Instead enter your own details here.
Pros: Again fairly quick and easy - possibly more efficient as the info will be available throughout multiple template sets.
Cons: The includes/footer.php file is part of the core distribution - it gets overwritten when you upgrade your favourite CMS.
specifics:

Find and remove these lines, or similar from the /includes/footer.php file, and replace with your own html or php.

3. Editing the language files directly - so that footer.php retrieves your info.
Pros: does the job
Cons: less transparent to anyone who takes over from you as editor. Also prone to being overwritten when you upgrade your favourite CMS.
Specifics: edit the file /languages/english.php


Some people have suggested moving the includes/footer.php file, for example into your template's folder, and editing the template to include this file.
Pros: still fairly quick and easy, and will survive an upgrade of the core CMS.
Cons: only compatible with templates that have been edited to work this way. Other templates may cause an error when the file is not found in its default location.

About the Author

Author: David AttardWebsite: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dattard/Email: david@collectiveray.com

David has been working in or around the online and digital industry for the last 21 years. He has vast experience in the software and web design industries using WordPress, Joomla and niches surrounding them. He has worked with software development agencies, international software companies, local marketing agencies and now is Head of Marketing Operations at Aphex Media - an SEO agency. As a digital consultant, his focus is on helping businesses get a competitive advantage using a combination of their website and digital platforms available today. His blend of technology expertise combined with a strong business acumen brings a competitive edge to his writings.