Options for saving drafts, previewing and publishing content
Once a page is live, saved updates are publicly visible. Know your options for controlling the visibility of pages.
Saving and preview options are in the top right corner of the page or post editor.
Saving and publishing options
1. Until the page is ready to publish, save it in Draft mode.
Click Save Draft in the top right, then save additional changes by clicking Update. To see and edit previously saved drafts, click Pages (or Posts, etc.) in the left menu of the WordPress dashboard. Above the list of all pages, click Drafts.
2. Click Preview to see changes without saving or publishing them.
The preview will open in a new tab, so remember to go back to the editor tab to continue making updates. (If you edit the preview, you will overwrite your unsaved changes!)
Autosaves and versioning
Your site regularly autosaves your work and also stores past revisions, which you can restore.
3. Click Publish to add the page to the live site.
Once a page has been published, any subsequent updates you save will go live immediately, so check your work right away. You can toggle between the editor view and live view of a page by clicking View Page / Edit Page in the black admin bar at the top.
Hiding a published page: Revert to draft or make it private
You have two options to unpublish a page without moving it to the trash:
- Click Switch to draft at the top right. The link is to the left of Preview and the Update button.
- Change the visibility to private. A privately published page is visible only to site Editors and Administrators. In the top right under the Update button (make sure you’re on the Document tab and not the Block tab), click on the visibility status — likely “Public” — to switch it to Private.
No matter how you remove a page from your site, remember to update any links to that page, and set a redirect.
Another visibility option is Password Protected. Password protected pages are still public and appear in the site menu. When a user visits the page, they will be prompted to enter a password to view its contents. All visitors share the same password. This feature is largely impractical and has very limited utility.
About the trash
Pages and posts in the trash are automatically deleted after 30 days. If you don’t want a page to be permanently deleted, you can restore it and then switch it to draft status instead.
To see and restore trashed pages or posts:
- In the left menu of the WordPress dashboard click on Pages (or Posts, etc.).
- Select Trash from links above the list of all pages.
- Hover over the page or post title and click Restore.
- A restored page will be automatically published. To switch it to a draft, go the list of all pages, click the page title to edit it, and follow the instructions in the section above.
Related tutorials
Options for saving drafts, previewing and publishing content
Once a page is live, saved updates are publicly visible. Know your options for controlling the visibility of pages.
Reverting to a previous version of a Page or Post
View the revision history and restore an earlier version of a page or post.