*** 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:
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In other tutorials, we explain the main difference between Posts and Pages and show you how to create a new WordPress post.
In WordPress, editing post content and deleting posts is simple.
In this tutorial, you will learn about editing and deleting an individual post, how to use the WordPress Table of Posts for performing individual and bulk edits and post deletions and provides useful tips that will help you save time using WordPress.
Tutorial content:
- Posts Section - The Table Of Posts
- Table of Posts – Screen Options
- WordPress Table Of Posts – Filtering Options
- How To Edit Posts
- Editing A WordPress Post
- Editing Multiple WordPress Posts
- Deleting Posts In WordPress
- How To Delete Single Posts In WordPress
- How To Delete Bulk Posts In WordPress
- Editing And Deleting Posts – Additional Information
Accessing The Posts Panel
In the Dashboard, select Posts > All Posts …
(Posts Menu – All Posts)
This brings up the WordPress Posts screen …
(WordPress Posts section)
In this area, you can add, edit, and delete posts …
(Add, edit, and delete posts in the Posts section)
For more information about creating a new WordPress post, go here: Creating A New WP Post
The Table Of Posts Explained
The Table of Posts displays your published posts, scheduled posts, private posts, sticky posts, draft posts (posts that are yet to be published), and posts that need to be approved by an editor or administrator before being published (pending posts).
Here are the main features of the Table of Posts:
The WordPress Table of Posts lists all of your posts in a row in reverse chronological order …
(Table of Posts – Post dates)
Posts can be selected for bulk actions like editing or deleting by clicking on the checkbox next to each post title (see Part 2 of this tutorial to learn more about bulk editing posts) …
(Select checkboxes in the Posts Title column to bulk edit posts)
WordPress Table Of Posts – Columns
Post Title
The title of each post displays in this column as a clickable link. Click on the post title link to edit your post …
(Post Title column)
Hover your mouse over a row in the posts list to reveal action links that let you further manage your post …
(Hover over title with cursor to view options)
You can perform the following actions:
- Edit takes you to the Post editor. You can also reach the Post Edit screen if you click on the title.
- Quick Edit gives you access to your post metadata. For a tutorial on how to use the Quick editor function, go here: The WordPress Quick Edit Function
- Trash removes the post from the list of posts and places it in the trash. From there you can permanently delete it.
- Preview will show you what your draft post will look like when you publish it. ‘View’ will take you to your live site to view the post. Which link is displayed will depend on your post’s status.
Indicators next to title of your posts enable you to tell if posts have been saved as Draft, Pending, Password Protected Post, etc …
(Table of Posts – Post Status)
Post Author Column
Posts authors are displayed in the ‘Author’ column …
(Post Author column)
If your site contains multiple authors, click on an author name …
(Table of Posts – Post author column)
This displays a list of all the posts that have been authored by the user in the Table of Posts …
(You can display a list of all posts authored by a user)
Categories
This column lists post categories.
Click on a specific category …
(Categories)
And all posts assigned to that category will be listed in the Table of Posts …
(Posts filtered by category)
Post Tags Column
This column lets you see all the tags that your posts have been filed under.
Click on a specific tag …
(Tags column – Posts Table)
And all posts assigned to that tag will be listed in your Posts table …
(Posts listed by tag)
Comments
The column with the “comment bubble” lets you see the number of comments associated with each post. The number of comments left on posts displays in the comment bubble next to each post.
To view any comments, simply click on the comment bubble …
(View comments left on posts by simply clicking on the bubble icon)
If any posts have pending comments, these will appear next to the bubble graphic for that post …
(Post Comments column – Posts Table)
For approved comments, the number is displayed inside the post’s commenting bubble graphic …
(WordPress Table of Posts: Comments)
Note: Clicking on the comments icon takes you to the Comments area where you can moderate comments left on your posts by visitors …
(Comments panel)
Date
The ‘Date’ column shows the dates for posts as follows:
- The Published date for published posts,
- The Last Modified date for unpublished posts (e.g. draft posts), and
- The Scheduled date for all posts scheduled for publishing in the future …
(Date)
As well as listing posts using the default ‘List’ view, the Table of Posts can also display your posts in the Table of Posts using ‘Excerpt’ view …
(Post Excerpt View – WordPress Table of Posts)
The section below explains how to display posts in the Table of Posts in Post Excerpt view.
WordPress Table of Posts – Screen Options
To view Table of Posts options, click on the ‘Screen Options’ tab on the top right-hand corner of the screen …
(WordPress Posts panel – ‘Screen Options’ tab)
The top section of the Posts panel expands and reveals several options for configuring your Table of Posts …
(WordPress Posts: Screen Options – Table of Posts options)
Options are divided into the following sections
- Columns – This section lets you enable/disable.
- Pagination – Enter the number of entries to display on each page of your Table of Posts.
- View Mode – Specify whether you want entries to display in ‘List View’ (default), or ‘Excerpt View’.
Click the ‘Apply’ button to update your settings when you are done …
(WordPress Posts: Screen Options – Table of Posts options)
WordPress Table Of Posts – Sorting Options
WordPress offers a number of options and menu links that let you filter, sort, and display selected posts. Depending on the status of your posts, you will see the following menu links and the existing number of posts currently assigned that status:
(Table of Posts – Menu options)
- All – Click on this link to show posts created by all authors.
- Mine – The ‘Mine’ menu filter returns only your posts.
- Published – Clicking this filter lists all published posts.
- Scheduled – Clicking this link brings up all posts set to ‘scheduled’ status.
- Draft – Clicking this filter displays all draft posts.
- Pending – The ‘Pending’ posts menu link returns all pending posts. (Posts set as ‘pending’ need to be approved by an Editor or Administrator before publishing.)
- Private – Click on this link to show all private posts.
- Trash – The ‘Trash’ posts menu filter displays all trashed posts
Click menu links to view posts by status …
(Table of Posts – Click post menu links to filter by status)
Below the menu filter and next to the ‘Bulk Actions’ drop menu and ‘Apply’ button are two additional post filtering features:
Date Filtering
The Posts table lets you filter posts by dates. Show all dates is the default selection and all of your posts are displayed.
Select a specific time period from the Posts > ‘All dates’ drop menu and click the ‘Filter’ button to display all posts within this date …
(Post Dates Filtering)
Filtering Posts By Category
In the Table of Posts, you can also filter posts by category. By default, All Categories is selected and displays all of your posts.
To filter posts by category, select a category from the ‘All Categories’ drop-down menu and click the ‘Filter’ button …
(Filter – All Categories)
If you have a large number of posts spanning across many Post screen pages, use the Search feature to filter and display only posts that contain the key phrases you have entered into the search field …
(Search Posts button)
To clear the search filter results and list all posts again, click the ‘All’ link in the menu section above the table …
(Click the ‘All’ link to clear your search filter results)
The search filter results will be cleared and all of your posts will be listed once again in the Table of Posts …
(Posts screen – Table of Posts)
Next Step …
Now that you know more about what all the different functions of the WordPress 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 part 1 of this tutorial.
Click below to access the rest of this tutorial:
How To Edit And Delete WordPress Posts – Part 2
Related WordPress Tutorials And Articles
The tutorials and articles below provide more detail about the features discussed above and how to get more benefit from using WordPress posts:
- WordPress Pages Vs Posts
- How To Create A New Post In WordPress
- The WordPress Inline Editor Feature
- How To Schedule Posts In WP
- How To Make Featured WordPress Posts
- WordPress Content Protection For Posts And Pages
- Web Traffic Blueprint Part Four – Learn How To Create A Web Traffic Generation Machine With WordPress
- Reattributing Posts To Other Users
- How To Set Up And Use Post Categories
- Adding, Editing, And Deleting Tags In WordPress
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