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Development / 2 min read

How to Publish Draft Pages in WordPress?

The WordPress interface. There's a text box under the prompt "Add New Post"

If you’re learning how to use WordPress and wondering how to publish your draft pages or posts, the process is actually really simple, and this article will show you how to do it.

What Are Drafts in WordPress?

In WordPress, a draft is a post or page that has been saved but not yet published. Drafts allow you to work on your content over time without making it live on your website until it’s ready.

When you create a post or page, it will be a draft by default and will only stop being a draft when you publish.

The easiest way to tell if a post or page is a draft is going to Posts > All Posts or Pages > All Pages and checking whether the title of the post or page has “— Draft” to its right.

The WordPress "All Posts" interface. Arrows highlight the draft status of two posts

If you don’t see “— Draft” to the right of the title, then this post or page has already been published.

How to Publish a Draft in WordPress?

To publish a draft in WordPress, go to Posts > All Posts or Pages > All Pages and click Edit under the draft you want to publish.

The WordPress "All Posts" interface. An arrow and box highlight the "Edit" button under a post.

Once on the post, click the Publish button in the upper right-hand corner.

The WordPress Gutenberg interface. An arrow highlights the "Publish" button on the top right-hand corner

A small menu will appear, prompting you to configure the post or page’s visibility and publish date.

The WordPress Gutenberg interface. There are multiple settings related to content management, such as the post's visibility, publish date, and tags.

You can click Publish again, and the post or page will be published immediately with Public visibility (anyone who visits your site can see this page/post).  

Alternatively, you can click the Publish dropdown menu to select a time and date for the post to go live. Click Publish in the upper right-hand corner to publish your post.

The WordPress Gutenberg interface. The "Publish" dropdown menu displays the time and date the post will be published on

If you select a past date, the post or page will be published immediately but appear as if it was published on the past date. If you choose a future date, the post will be scheduled.

How to Revert a Published Page to a Draft in WordPress?

You can publish a draft page or post, but you can also revert published content back into a draft at any point. To do that, go to Posts > All Posts or Pages > All Pages and click Edit under the published content you want to turn into a draft.

On the right-hand sidebar, click on Switch to Draft.

The WordPress Gutenberg interface. An arrow highlights the "Switch to Draft" button

After that, your post or page will become a draft again and you can republish it later.

Start Posting Content on WordPress

WordPress is a powerful content management tool that allows you to publish, schedule, and revert content back to a draft. In this article, we learned how to publish your drafts and revert published content into a draft, should you ever need to.

Hopefully, you now know how to manage your content better. Use this knowledge to create better content to get your site noticed.

If you found this post useful, read our blog and resources for more insights and guides!