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How to Schedule Post and Page Updates in WordPress

In this text and video Quick Guide, we’ll cover how to schedule a post update or a page update, so that your scheduled post revision is automatically set to go live at a particular time.

Why You’d Want to Schedule Post or Page Updates

Being able to schedule revisions to post or page content has a lot of possible uses. For example, you may want the copy on one of your site’s pages to automatically update when a sale starts on December 1. Rather than needing to be in WordPress on December 1 itself, you can simply schedule the change to auto-propagate at that time.

How to Schedule Updates for WordPress Posts and Pages (Video Guide)

Scheduled updates and revisions for posts, pages, and custom post types aren’t an out-of-the-box feature of WordPress. We’ll need the PublishPress Revisions plugin to make it possible.

Here’s a video guide to how to use PublishPress Revisions to schedule WordPress post updates in advance:

And here’s a written guide to using PublishPress Revisions as shown in the video:

How to Schedule Changes to WordPress Posts and Pages Using PublishPress Revisions

Here’s how to set scheduled plan changes to your WordPress pages and posts. As a quick advance note: below (and in the video), I describe the interface for the new default “Block” or “Gutenberg” WordPress post editing screens, rather than the “Classic” or “TinyMCE” one.

  1. First, install the “PublishPress Revisions” plugin. To do that you’ll go to “Plugins > Add New” and search for “publishpress revisions.” When you find it, click its “Install” button, and then after that process completes the “Activate” button that will replace the “Install” one. With that, the plugin will be running on your site.
  2. Now, the workflow for PublishPress revisions comes into play. It’s a place I’d like to see the plugin made easier, but we’ll get started where it is now. First, you’ll want to find the post you’d like to have revise at a future date. On that post, you’ll want to go into the edit screen.
  3. On the edit screen, make the changes to the post you’re trying to change. Add or remove or change things in post like the year. Add a paragraph or two that’ll only be relevant to your readers after a certain future event. Anything like that. Don’t hit “Update” yet.
  4. Now that you’ve made your changes, to put them into a revision queue (rather than have them go live immediately) you’ll want to click the “Pending Revision” checkbox that the plugin has added near the “Update” or “Publish” button you’re used to in the top-right of the post-editing area. (Which will have been changed to “Save Revision.”)
  5. Finally, if you’d like to make this change *automatically* go live at future time, click the blue “Save Revision” button in the top-right of your post editing interface.

On the whole, PublishPress Revisions was one of the most confusing plugins I’ve tried to use recently. But it’s also one of the more complex topics I’ve tried to use a plugin to help with. I hope that you put in the time to get the hang of it and find it valuable when you do. Best wishes!

More on Scheduling Changes in WordPress

If you’re interested in publishing WordPress changes on a schedule, check out our article on how to schedule design changes to your site from the WordPress Customizer. This would let you, for example, automatically change your site’s color scheme on the first day of summer.

Thanks for reading!

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David Hayes
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Christy
March 14, 2022 8:33 am

Hi, does this plugin allow you to schedule changes to a post/page’s password? Can’t seem to find a solution that works for scheduling password changes. Thanks!

Jesse
September 8, 2020 1:53 pm

Hey thanks David!
I just sent this article to one of my users who had the same question

Elle Rish
January 13, 2020 8:35 am

Wow! Never thought this one is possible, been using WordPress already for years in running our eCommerce business and this is a great feature.

I would definitely try this out sometimes, as we also need to update some contents in a specific future time, so a plugin that could schedule posts revisions is exactly what we needed!

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