Scheduling a Post

Rather than publishing content the moment it’s ready, you can set it to go live automatically at a future date and time — useful for announcements, event listings, or anything that shouldn’t appear until a specific day. This page covers how to schedule a post, check what’s scheduled, and change a scheduled date.

Scheduling a new post

1. Write and finish your post as normal, including any images, categories, and tags.
2. Open the Post settings panel on the right-hand side of the editor (click the gear/cog icon at the top right if it isn’t already open).
3. Under the Status & visibility section, find Publish, which by default reads Immediately.
4. Click Immediately to open the date picker.
5. Choose the date and time you want the post to go live, then click Close or click away from the picker to confirm it.
6. The button in the top right of the editor will now read Schedule instead of Publish. Click it to bring up the pre-publish checklist, then click Schedule again to confirm.

Once scheduled, the post is saved but stays hidden from visitors until the date and time you set. WordPress publishes it automatically — you don’t need to be logged in or do anything further when the time arrives.

Scheduling an existing draft

The process is identical for a post you’ve already started. Open the draft, follow the same steps above to set a future date under Status & visibility, then click Schedule.

Checking what’s scheduled

1. Go to Posts in the left-hand admin menu.
2. Along the top of the post list, click the Scheduled filter (alongside All, Published, Drafts) to see everything queued up.
3. Each scheduled post shows its go-live date and time instead of a published date, so you can see at a glance what’s coming up.

Changing a scheduled date or time

1. Open the scheduled post from the Scheduled list, or from Posts > All Posts.
2. In the Post settings panel, click on the scheduled date shown under Publish.
3. Pick a new date and time and confirm.
4. Click Update (or Schedule, depending on the button label) to save the change.

Un-scheduling a post

If you want to pull a post back to draft rather than have it publish on its scheduled date, open it, click the scheduled date under Status & visibility, and set it to Immediately. Then, in the same panel, change the status from Scheduled back to Draft and click Save draft. This removes it from the queue without publishing it.

Tips

• Scheduled times use the site’s configured timezone, not necessarily your device’s local time — double-check this if you’re scheduling something time-sensitive, such as an event announcement.
• A post can only go live automatically if the site is publicly accessible at that time — if you’re doing maintenance or the site is temporarily down, scheduled posts due during that window may need republishing manually afterwards.
• Scheduling works the same way for other content types on the site, such as Vacancies or Events, not just standard Posts.
• If a scheduled post doesn’t appear to have gone live, check Posts > All Posts first — it may still show as Scheduled if the date was set incorrectly (e.g. accidentally set in the past year), get in touch if you’re not sure.