Add Dropdown Pages Links to WordPress Admin Bar

On sites with many pages, opening one to edit means going to Pages, searching and clicking. This snippet adds a Pages dropdown to the WordPress admin bar with an edit link for each page, on the front end and in wp-admin, so any page is two clicks away.

The snippet

<?php
/**
 * Add a "Pages" dropdown to the WordPress admin bar with an edit link for each page.
 * Shown only to users who can edit pages.
 */

// ===== Config =====
function dpc_admin_bar_pages_limit(): int {
	return 100; // How many pages to list.
}
// ===== End of config =====

add_action( 'admin_bar_menu', 'dpc_admin_bar_pages', 999 );

function dpc_admin_bar_pages( WP_Admin_Bar $wp_admin_bar ): void {
	if ( ! current_user_can( 'edit_pages' ) ) {
		return;
	}

	$wp_admin_bar->add_node(
		array(
			'id'    => 'dpc-pages',
			'title' => esc_html__( 'Pages', 'dpc' ),
			'href'  => admin_url( 'edit.php?post_type=page' ),
		)
	);

	$pages = get_posts(
		array(
			'post_type'              => 'page',
			'post_status'            => array( 'publish', 'future', 'draft', 'pending', 'private' ),
			'posts_per_page'         => dpc_admin_bar_pages_limit(),
			'orderby'                => array(
				'menu_order' => 'ASC',
				'title'      => 'ASC',
			),
			'no_found_rows'          => true,
			'update_post_meta_cache' => false,
			'update_post_term_cache' => false,
		)
	);

	foreach ( $pages as $page ) {
		if ( ! current_user_can( 'edit_post', $page->ID ) ) {
			continue;
		}

		$title = wp_strip_all_tags( get_the_title( $page ) );
		if ( '' === $title ) {
			$title = __( '(no title)', 'dpc' );
		}
		if ( 'publish' !== $page->post_status && 'private' !== $page->post_status ) {
			$title .= ' (' . get_post_status_object( $page->post_status )->label . ')';
		}

		$wp_admin_bar->add_node(
			array(
				'id'     => 'dpc-page-' . $page->ID,
				'parent' => 'dpc-pages',
				'title'  => esc_html( $title ),
				'href'   => get_edit_post_link( $page->ID, 'raw' ),
			)
		);
	}
}

Add it with Scripts Organizer

In Scripts Organizer go to Code Blocks → Add New and give the block a name. Set Trigger location to Everywhere, tick PHP under Script location, paste the code into the PHP editor, edit the config and publish. Leave Action/Hook empty. The admin bar shows on the front end too, so Admin only is not enough.

The same code also works unchanged in a small plugin or an mu-plugin.

How it works

admin_bar_menu passes the WP_Admin_Bar object; add_node() adds the Pages item, linked to the Pages list, and one child item per page. Priority 999 puts it after the core items.
The menu only appears for users with the edit_pages capability (editors and administrators by default), and each page is checked with current_user_can( 'edit_post', $id ).
Drafts, pending, scheduled and private pages are listed too, with their status after the title, sorted by page order and then title.
get_edit_post_link() builds the edit URL, so it still works when WordPress lives in a subdirectory.
The admin bar prints node titles as HTML. The snippet strips tags and escapes the title, so a page title can’t inject markup into every admin screen.

The older version had no capability check, so every logged-in user who sees the admin bar, subscribers included, got a list of all pages with edit links. It also printed titles unescaped, linked the parent item to Oxygen templates and loaded every page on every request.

Customise it

More or fewer pages: change the number in dpc_admin_bar_pages_limit().
Another post type: change 'page' in get_posts() and the post_type in the parent link, and use a capability that fits, such as edit_posts.
Only on the front end: add if ( is_admin() ) { return; } at the top of the function.
For a single extra link instead of a list, see Add a Custom Link to the WordPress Admin Bar.

Gotchas

With hundreds of pages a dropdown gets too long to use. Keep the limit low and use the Pages search for the rest.
Child pages are listed flat, not indented under their parent.

In the Scripts Organizer library Import it with one click from Scripts Organizer.