How To Schedule Design Changes in WordPress

One of the really useful features in WordPress is the ability to schedule design changes. I admit that while I find this feature very cool, I don’t use it a lot. But if you’re the kind of person who likes to mark holidays, sales, or something else with customizations to the look of your WordPress site, you should really know about this amazing power of the WordPress Customizer. It’ll really change the game if you’ve never used it before.

Important Note: This feature works with classic WordPress themes that use the traditional Customizer. If you’re using a modern block theme (also called Full Site Editing or FSE themes), you won’t have access to the Customizer in the same way. Block themes use the Site Editor instead and there’s no option to schedule design changes there. Learn more about the difference between classic and FSE themes.

How to Schedule Design Customizations in WordPress

We’ll assume you’re already somewhat comfortable with the WordPress Customizer. If not, that’s your first step on this project. Then here’s how you’ll schedule your Halloween, Christmas, sale, etc based timed design change:

1. Make your changes in the WordPress Customizer, but do not press the save button.
2. Once your completely satisfied with the (set of) changes, you’ll want to click on the small gear icon to the right on the “Save” button.
3. This is bring you the panel that allows schedule changes in WordPress. At the top you should see the title “Action” with the options “Publish,” “Save Draft,” and “Schedule.” As you might guess, we’ll pick “Schedule” to make our changes go live a specific future time.
4. Set the “Date” and “Time” fields to be the specific time that you’ll want your design changes to take effect.
5. Click the “Schedule” button.

You’re done! Your changes will go live at the point you schedule. Nothing else to do 🙂 Cheers!

If you’re using a block theme and can’t find the Customizer option described above, you are probably using a Full Site Editing (FSE) theme.