How To Edit And Delete WordPress Posts

*** Important ***

WordPress introduced a new content editor in version 5.0 called Gutenberg.

For tutorials on how to use the new Gutenberg content editor, go here:

• WordPress Gutenberg Tutorials For Non-Techies

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In other articles and tutorials, we explain the main differences between a Post and a Page and show you how to create a new WordPress post.

In WordPress, editing post content and deleting posts is very simple.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to edit and delete an individual WordPress post, how to use the built-in features of the WordPress Posts Table to perform individual and bulk edits and post deletions and provides many other useful tips to save you time working with WordPress.

Tutorial content:

• Posts Screen - The WordPress Table Of Posts
  • WordPress Table of Posts – Screen Options
  • WordPress Table Of Posts – Filtering Options
• How To Edit Posts In WordPress
  • How To Edit Individual WordPress Posts
  • Editing Bulk Posts In WordPress
• Deleting Posts
  • Deleting A Post In WordPress
  • Deleting Multiple Posts In WordPress
• Editing And Deleting WordPress Posts – Additional Tips And Information

Posts Screen

Go to the Dashboard and choose Posts > All Posts …

(Posts – All Posts)

This brings up the Posts screen …

(WordPress Posts screen)

Here you can add, edit, and delete posts …

(Add, edit, and delete posts in the WordPress Posts page)

We have created a detailed tutorial about creating a new post in WordPress here: How To Create A WordPress Post

WordPress Table Of Posts

The Table of Posts lists your published posts, scheduled posts, private posts, sticky posts, posts that are yet to be published (draft posts), and posts that need to be approved by an administrator or editor before being published (pending posts).

Let’s go through some of the main features of the WordPress Table of Posts:

The Table of Posts displays a list of all your posts displayed in reverse chronological order …

(Posts are displayed in reverse chronological order)

Multiple posts can be selected by ticking the checkbox next to each post title (see Part Two of this tutorial to learn more about bulk editing posts) …

(Select checkboxes to bulk edit posts)

Table Of Posts – Column Sections

Post Title

The title of each post displays as a clickable link. Clicking on a post title lets you edit that post …

(Title column)

Hover your mouse over a row in the posts list to display links that let you manage your posts …

(Hover over title with cursor to view options)

The following post management tasks are available:

• Edit takes you to the Post Edit panel. You can also reach the editing screen for that post by clicking on the title of the post.
• Quick Edit gives you access to your post metadata. We have written a comprehensive step-by-step tutorial on using Quick Edit here: How To Use The Quick Edit Feature In WordPress To Edit Your Posts And Pages
• Trash removes your post from the list of posts and moves it to the trash. From there it can be permanently deleted.
• Preview will show you what your draft post will look like when it is published. ‘View’ takes you to your live site to view the post. Which link is displayed depends on your post’s status.

Indicators next to your post title will tell you if posts have been saved as Draft, Pending, Password Protected Post, etc …

(Post Status)

Author

Posts authors are listed in the ‘Author’ column …

(Post Author)

If your website contains multiple authors, click on an author name …

(Post author links are clickable)

This will display a list of all posts authored by that user …

(You can display a list of all posts authored by a user)

Post Categories

This column lets you see post categories.

Click on a category …

(Category links are clickable)

And all posts which include that category will show up in your Table of Posts …

(Listing posts by categories)

Tags Column

This column displays all the tags for each post.

Click on a tag …

(Posts Table – Post tags column)

And the Posts table filters and returns only posts which include that particular tag …

(List of posts by tag)

Post Comments

The column with the “comment bubble” lets you see the number of comments made for your posts. If your posts have comments, the number of comments will appear in the comment bubble next to the post.

To view any comments, just click on the bubble …

(Clicking on the bubble lets you view comments for that post)

If posts have pending comments, these will appear alongside the comment icon for that post …

(WordPress Table of Posts: Comments)

The number of approved comments displays inside the post’s commenting graphic …

(Post Comments column – WordPress Table of Posts)

Note: Clicking on the commenting bubble takes you to the Comments area where you can moderate comments left by visitors …

(Manage comments left by visitors and users in the Comments area)

Post Date

The ‘Date’ column shows the dates for each post as follows:

• The Published date for published posts,
• The Last Modified date for unpublished posts (e.g. posts set to ‘draft’ status), and
• The Scheduled date for all posts set to publish at a later date …

(Date)

In addition to listing posts using the default ‘List’ view, you can also display your posts in the Table of Posts using ‘Excerpt’ view …

(Excerpts View – Posts Table)

The section below explains how to display posts in the Table of Posts in Excerpt view.

WordPress Table of Posts – Screen Options

To view options for configuring your Table of Posts, click the ‘Screen Options’ tab at the top of your screen …

(Table of Posts – ‘Screen Options’)

The top section of your screen expands and reveals a number of options for configuring your Table of Posts …

(Table of Posts options)

Options are divided into the following sections

• Columns – This section allows you to enable/disable.
• Pagination – Enter the number of items to display on each page of your Table of Posts.
• View Mode – Choose a radio button to select whether you would like items to display in ‘List View’ (default), or ‘Excerpt View’.

Click ‘Apply’ to update your settings when finished …

(Posts: Screen Options – Table of Posts options)

Post Management Area – Filtering Posts

WordPress offers various options and menu links to sort, filter, and display your posts. Depending on the status of your posts, you will see the following menu links and the number of posts with that status:

(Post management area – Post menu options)

• All – The ‘All’ menu filter lists all posts.
• Mine – Click on this link to display only your posts.
• Published – The ‘Published’ posts menu link shows all published posts.
• Scheduled – Click on this menu filter to display all scheduled posts.
• Draft – Clicking this filter shows all posts set to ‘draft’ status.
• Pending – Click on this menu link to bring up a list of all posts set to ‘pending’ status. (Posts listed as ‘pending’ need the review and approval of Editors or Administrators before publishing.)
• Private – Clicking this menu filter displays all posts set to ‘private’ status.
• Trash – The ‘Trash’ menu lists all posts set to ‘trash’ status

Click post menu links to view by status …

(WordPress Post Management Screen – Click post menu links to view by status)

Below the post menu links and next to the ‘Bulk Actions’ drop menu and ‘Apply’ button are two additional filtering options:

View Posts By Dates

The WordPress Table of Posts lets you filter posts by months. Show all dates is the default selection and all your posts are displayed.

Use the dropdown menu and click the ‘Filter’ button to display posts by date …

(Filter – All Dates/Months)

View Posts By Categories

WordPress also lets you filter posts by categories. All Categories is the default option and displays all posts.

Select a category from the ‘All Categories’ drop-down menu and click the ‘Filter’ button to display posts assigned to your selected category …

(Filter – All Categories)

If there are many posts spanning across many Post screen pages, use the Search Posts button to filter and display only posts containing the search words entered into the search field …

(WordPress Posts section – Search Posts button)

To clear the search filter results and view all posts again, click the ‘All’ link above the table …

(Click the ‘All’ link to clear the results of the search filter)

The search filter results will be cleared and all of your posts will be listed once again in the Table of Posts …

(Posts panel – Table of Posts)

Next Step …

Now that you know more about what all the different functions of the Table of Posts are and how they work, the next step is to learn how to edit and delete posts in WordPress.

This is the end of section 1 of this tutorial.

To view Part Two, click on the link below:

Editing And Deleting A WordPress Post – Part Two

Related Tutorials And Articles

The tutorials and articles below provide more detail about topics discussed above and how to use posts:

• WordPress Pages And Posts
• How To Create A New WP Post
• The Inline Editor Feature Of WordPress
• How To Schedule WordPress Blog Posts For Publishing Later
• Make Posts In WordPress Sticky
• WordPress Content Protection For Posts And Pages
• Web Site Traffic Blueprint Part Four – A Complete Guide To Driving More Website Traffic Automatically With WordPress
• How To Change A WordPress Post Author
• How To Add, Edit, And Delete Categories
• How To Add, Edit, And Delete Tags

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