Have you ever wondered how to duplicate a WordPress page or post in just one click?
WordPress is one of the most popular ways for all kinds of people to create a beautiful and functional website. For this reason, there are plenty of questions about the ins and outs of WordPress.
Using shortcuts and hacks to help optimize your website is one of the best things you can do, and we love when we get reader questions about what best practices work the best (try saying that 5 times fast).
One reader asked: is it possible to duplicate a WordPress page in a single click?
We’re going to break down exactly how you can quickly and effectively make a copy of a WordPress page or post including all of the settings, that way you can make all necessary edits without affecting what you’ve already created.
Let’s take a look.
Why Duplicate a Page or Post in WordPress?
There are plenty of uses for a WordPress site— eCommerce website, portfolio website, blog, online community, knowledge website, and much more.
As a matter of fact, WordPress powers roughly 40% of the entire internet.
Talk about CRAZY!
If you’re operating a WordPress website, chances are you may need to copy a post or page without taking up too much time.
Read More: How To Choose The Best WordPress Host For Any Website
For example, if you’ve got a blog that has a lot of reusable content or posts that can be updated and reposted, you can use this copy feature to keep all of your images and settings intact with the new post.
If you copy everything manually and then paste all of the contents of the post or page into a new draft, you won’t retain any of that— no images, no post settings, no metadata, and no SEO settings.
This isn’t a convenient or efficient way to expand your content; isn’t there a better way?
Can a post or page be duplicated on WordPress with all the settings and media included for any WordPress theme?
Yes, it’s possible, and we’re going to show you just how you can do it so that you can start working on your new post or page as soon as you duplicate it.
Let’s see how to easily clone a WordPress post or page with only a single click.
Walkthrough: Duplicate a WordPress Post or Page
There are only two simple steps to this process, so once you get the hang of it you’ll be ready to copy pages or posts at the drop of a hat.
Step 1: Install and activate the Duplicate Post plugin
The first thing you’ll need to do is install and activate a plugin by Yoast called “Duplicate Post.” This can be done from the “plugins” tab; search for it and then you can install it and activate it.
Installing and activating this plugin will take us to step 2, where all the action happens.
Step 2: Navigate to Posts > All Posts page
Now that you’ve got the Duplicate Post plugin activated, you’ll now navigate to your posts page, and take a look at all posts. You will see two new options below the title of your post that weren’t there previously.
These new links will read “clone” and “new draft.” Let’s see what each one does:
- Clone: when you click this button, you’ll create a duplicate post but it will not open the duplicate post in a post editor, it will simply be copied.
- New Draft: the new draft link will create a duplicate post and also open it in the post editor, allowing you to go to town editing and changing up the duplicate copy.
Both of these options work the same for WordPress pages as well.
All in all, the Duplicate Post plugin is a lifesaver that can help you much more effectively than manually copying.
If you are just looking to update an already published post and leave it as-is, this isn’t necessarily the best option, as there are better ways to update live WordPress posts.
If you’re looking to repurpose a post or page, this is the main tool you’d want to use. Some scenarios where Duplicate Post plugin is especially useful include redesigning your website, copying landing pages, expanding on past posts and creating new versions, to name a few.
Customizing Duplicate Post Plugin Settings
Posts and Pages are both supported by Duplicate Post and it works immediately after you have it installed and activated. There are a couple of other settings that you can select, however, to make the tool work even better for you.
You’ll be able to enable a variety of functionalities on the plugin, including support for custom post types, restrict to user roles, as well as choosing exactly what should be copied when you make a duplicate post or page.
In order to enable or adjust these settings, you’re going to navigate to Settings > Duplicate Post, allowing you to configure the settings of this particular plugin.
Upon arriving at this page, you’ll see that the settings are divided into three different sections: What to copy, Permissions, and Display.
Let’s take a look at each tab:
- What to copy: this is the default tab, and here you can decide what post/page elements to copy into your duplicate. You can also add title prefixes and suffixes so you can easily identify the duplicates. You can select different elements including title, date, status, template, format, featured image, and many more. The plugin will already come with default selections, but you can check to make sure that all of your desired items are ticked.
- Permissions: permissions will have two different sections, including roles allowed to copy and enable for these post types. You’ll have the admin and editor with default permission to copy, but you can expand those as you see fit. You can also decide which post types can be copied; if you use custom post types, they will also appear here.
- Display: The display tab will allow you to select where the duplicate post links will be displayed. The default display settings show the link on the post list, edit screen, as well as the admin bar. You can edit as you see fit, and you can also choose to show the original item and/or update notice.
Once you’ve finished reviewing and updating the Duplicate Post plugin settings, make sure you click save changes so that they will be stored and go into effect.
Conclusion: How to Duplicate a WordPress Page or Post
It’s that simple! We’ve reached the end of our guide on how to duplicate a WordPress page or post. WordPress plugins make the functionalities of WordPress almost infinite; you can truly have a whole world of possibilities through the use of simple plugins such as Duplicate Post.
We hope that this article helped you learn how to create a quick duplicate of any WordPress post or page. Check out some of our other guides to maximize your use of the WordPress platform!
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