What is a WordPress draft? Have you ever written a post only to stop halfway through due to an emergency or writer’s block? It can be frustrating to abandon your unfinished work and start from scratch again. Fortunately, you can continue working on your posts even at a later time and have your progress saved every step of the way. These are the kinds of benefits that WordPress drafts bring.
The draft is one of the available statuses that WordPress posts can have. All unpublished posts are originally saved as WordPress drafts. WordPress automatically saves these drafts as you write them, so you don’t have to worry about losing your work even if you close your browser or turn off your computer.
📚 Read on to learn more about what is a WordPress draft, the draft status, and how to publish or schedule your drafts.
Understanding draft status in WordPress
There’s a handful of post statuses in WordPress, and Draft is one of them.
![What is a WordPress Draft](https://mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com/cb:jC7e.37109/w:1281/h:177/q:90/f:avif/https://themeisle.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/What-Is-a-WordPress-Draft.png)
Posts with a draft label are unpublished and private. This means they are inaccessible to the public, allowing you to continue writing the post without worrying about potential leaks. Moreover, WordPress has an autosave feature that temporarily saves your draft posts in a secure database and prevents them from being accidentally deleted.
To find the draft posts in your WordPress account, you should first open the dashboard, then navigate to the sidebar menu to the Posts button. You will then be redirected to the Posts interface. Look for the Drafts link at the top left portion, and click it. After that, all your draft posts will be listed. Once you find the one you’re looking for, just click on its title, and the unfinished post or page will appear.
How to publish or schedule a draft post
Not everyone that has access to a WordPress account can publish or schedule a draft post. Aside from the post or page author, only the editors and administrators have the authority to publish posts. However, access can be granted or denied to certain users by customizing their WordPress user roles.
Once you already have publication authority, find and open the draft post you want to publish. Click the Publish button at the upper right side of the interface.
![Publish Draft](https://mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com/cb:jC7e.37109/w:585/h:254/q:90/f:avif/https://themeisle.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/publish-draft.png)
The default setting is immediate publication. However, you can choose a different publication time and date by clicking the immediately button and selecting your preferred schedule. You can likewise use WordPress plugins like Editorial Calendar to quickly and more conveniently schedule your draft posts.
After your post or page is published, you can turn it back into a private draft at any time by selecting the Switch to draft button. You’ll find this option at the top right of the WordPress editor interface.
Conclusion: What is a WordPress draft? 🤓
Now that you know what is a WordPress draft and how to publish or schedule a draft post, you can begin creating content and pages for your website without fear of losing unfinished work.