How to schedule posts in WordPress

If you’re heading on vacation and want to give your readers something while you’re away, or if you’ve just worked on a post until midnight and want the “Posted on” timestamp to look a bit more proper, the schedule feature in WordPress is your friend.

You can schedule and unscheduled posts in two places: when you’re editing a single posts, and when you’re viewing the list of posts in the administration panel. I’ll talk you through both. While we’re using blog posts for this example, you can also schedule the publication of pages and most other post types in WordPress.

When editing a single post

1. Log in to your WordPress administration panel.
2. Click on “Posts” in the menu on the left.
3. Click on the post you want to edit in the list, or click on “Add Post” if you want to schedule a new post.
4. In the right sidebar, the tab navigation should have the “Post” tab selected. If it doesn’t, click on “Post” in the tab navigation.
5. Here, you can edit details about the post like its status, author, template, categories, tags, and publication date and time. The last one, listed next to “Publish”, is what we’re looking for. If you’re creating a new post or editing a draft, it will say “Immediately”. Click on it.
6. In the popup, you can select any date and time that you’d like to publish the post on. If you select a date and/or time in the future, the post will be scheduled for publication on the date and time you’ve selected. If you change your mind and want to publish the post immediately, you can select the little “Now” button next to the X icon in the popup. If you want to schedule the post, select the date and time you want to schedule it for and close the “Publish” popup.
7. You’ll notice that the blue button in the top right will have changed to say “Schedule”. Click on it, and the post will go live on the date and time you selected. You can at any time change the scheduled date and time to a different one, or publish the post immediately by clicking the “Now” button in the “Publish” popup and clicking the “Publish” button in the top right. If you want to unschedule the post without publishing it, click the “Scheduled” link next to “Status” in the right sidebar, select “Draft” in the list, and then click “Save”.

When in the Posts edit list view

1. Log in to your WordPress administration panel.
2. Click on “Posts” in the menu on the left.
3. Locate the post you want to schedule in the list. Hover over the post, and click the “Quick Edit” link that appears below the title.
4. Enter the time and date you want the post to be scheduled for next to the “Date” label.
5. Next, locate the “Status” label, click on the dropdown, and change it to “Published”.
6. Click on the “Update” button. The post will now be scheduled for the date and time you selected.