Post Expirator

The PublishPress Future plugin allows you to schedule changes to posts, pages and other content types. With this plugin you can create automatic actions to unpublish, delete, trash, move a post to a new status and more. You can also create custom workflows with multiple actions and schedules.

Here some examples of what you can do with PublishPress Future:

• Change the status to “Draft” after 15 days.
• Add new categories to post after 6 months.
• 15 days after the post is published, move the post to the “Pending Review” status and add a new category.
• 1 year after a post is published, send an email to the author asking them to check the content.

PublishPress Future Pro

Upgrade to PublishPress Future Pro
This plugin is the free version of the PublishPress Future plugin. The Pro version comes with all the features you need to schedule changes to your WordPress content. Click here to purchase the best plugin for scheduling WordPress content updates!

Options for Future Actions on Posts

With PublishPress Future, you can configure actions that will happen automatically to your content. Here are the changes you can choose for your posts:

• Change the status to “Draft”.
• Delete the post.
• Send the post to the Trash.
• Change the status to “Private”.
• Enable the “Stick to the top of the blog” option.
• Disable the “Stick to the top of the blog” option.
• Remove all existing categories, and add new categories.
• Keep all existing categories, and add new categories.
• Keep all existing categories, except for those specified in this change.
• Move the post to a custom status (available in the Pro version)

Click here for details on scheduling post changes.

Custom Workflows to Schedule Content Changes

With PublishPress Future, you can also build Action Workflows. These allow you to update your content using custom workflows with multiple steps and schedules. Here are some examples of what you can do with Action Workflows:

• Email the site admin when a post is updated.
• Change the post status to “Trash” a week after it was published.
• 15 days after the post is published, move the post to the “Draft” status and add a new category.
• 1 year after a post is published, send an email to the author asking them to check the content.

Click here for details on workflows for changes.

Here are the available triggers that you can use to start a workflow:

• Post is saved: This trigger activates whenever a post is saved, regardless of whether it’s newly created, imported, or updated.
• Post is updated: This trigger activates when an existing post is updated.
• Post is published (Pro version): This trigger activates when an existing post is updated.
• Post is scheduled (Pro version): This trigger activates when a post is scheduled.
• Post status changed (Pro version): This trigger activates when a post status changes.
• Post meta changed (Pro version): This trigger activates when a post meta field is changed.
• Manually enabled via checkbox: This allows users to manually trigger the workflow. It can be enabled via the post editing screen or the “Quick Edit” panel.
• Manually enabled via Future Actions box: This adds the workflow to the default “Future Actions” box so it can be manually triggered by users.
• On cron schedule (Pro version): This trigger allows to run a workflow at a specific time, or relative to another date. You can also use this trigger to repeat workflows.

Here are the available actions that you can use for your workflow:

• Delete post: This will completely remove the post from your site.
• Stick post: This will enable the “Stick to the top of the blog” feature for the post.
• Unstick post: This will disable the “Stick to the top of the blog” feature for the post.
• Add extra terms to post: This will keep the current terms and add additional terms that you choose.
• Replace all terms on the post: This will remove all the current terms and add additional terms that you choose to the post.
• Remove the terms from the post: This will remove the current terms that you choose from the post.
• Move post to status (Pro version): This will remove the current status for a post and add a new status.
• Deactivate Workflow for Post (Pro version): This step enables you to deactivate the “Manually enabled via checkbox” workflow after use.
• Add post meta (Pro version): This step adds post meta to a post.
• Delete post meta (Pro version): This step deletes post meta from a post.
• Update post meta (Pro version): This step updates post meta for a post.
• Send email (Pro version): This will send an email that you can customize.

Here the advanced steps you can use to enhance your workflow:

• Conditional Split (Pro version): This step allows you to continue the workflow only if certain conditions are met.
• Schedule: This trigger allows to run the next part of a workflow at a specific time, or relative to another date. You can also use this trigger to repeat the next part of the workflow.
• Log – Add: This step transmits the flow’s data to the debug log.
• Query Posts (Pro version): This step defines the posts that will be passed to the next step in the workflow.

Display the Action Date in Your Content

PublishPress Future allows you to place automatically show the expiry or action date inside your articles. The date will be added at the bottom of your post.

Click here to see the Footer Display options.

You can use shortcodes to show the expiration date inside your posts. You can customize the shortcode output with several formatting options.

Click here to see the shortcode options.

Choose Actions Defaults for Post Types

PublishPress Future can support any post type in WordPress. Go to Settings > PublishPress Future > Defaults and you can choose default actions for each post type.

Click here to see the default options.

PublishPress Future Email Notifications

The PublishPress Future plugin can send you email notifications when your content is changed. You can control the emails by going to Settings > PublishPress Future > General Settings.

Click here to see the notification options.

Integrations With Other Plugins

In PublishPress Future Pro it is possible to schedule changes to your posts based on metadata. This makes it possible to integrate PublishPress Future with other plugins. For example, you can create a date field in the Advanced Custom Fields plugin and use that to control the date for Future Actions.

When you are using an integration, there are five types of data that you can update in PublishPress Future:

• Action Status: This field specifies if the action should be enabled.
• Action Date: This field stores the scheduled date for the action.
• Action Type: This field stores the type of action that will be executed.
• Taxonomy Name: The taxonomy name for being used when selecting terms.
• Taxonomy Terms: A list of term’s IDs for being used by the action.

Click here to see how to integrate Future with other plugins.

Import the Future Actions

PublishPress Future Pro supports imports from external data sources. You can import posts and automatically create Future Actions associated with those posts.

The best approach is to use the Metadata Scheduling feature. If you’re using a plugin such as WP All Import, you can match up the import tables with the fields you have selected in the Metadata Scheduling feature.

Click here to see how to import data for Future Actions.

Details on How Post Changes Works

For each expiration event, a custom cron job is scheduled. This can help reduce server overhead for busy sites. This plugin REQUIRES that WP-CRON is setup and functional on your webhost. Some hosts do not support this, so please check and confirm if you run into issues using the plugin.

Click here to see the technical details for this plugin.

Logs for All Your Post Changes

PublishPress Future Pro allows you to keep a detailed record of all the post updates. PublishPress Future records several key data points for all actions:

• The post that the action was performed on.
• Details of the post update.
• When the change was made to the post.

Click here to see more about the logs feature.

Join PublishPress and get the Pro plugins

The Pro versions of the PublishPress plugins are well worth your investment. The Pro versions have extra features and faster support. Click here to join PublishPress.

Join PublishPress and you’ll get access to these nine Pro plugins:

• PublishPress Authors Pro allows you to add multiple authors and guest authors to WordPress posts.
• PublishPress Blocks Pro has everything you need to build professional websites with the WordPress block editor.
• PublishPress Capabilities Pro is the plugin to manage your WordPress user roles, permissions, and capabilities.
• PublishPress Checklists Pro enables you to define tasks that must be completed before content is published.
• PublishPress Future Pro is the plugin for scheduling changes to your posts.
• PublishPress Permissions Pro is the plugin for advanced WordPress permissions.
• PublishPress Planner Pro is the plugin for managing and scheduling WordPress content.
• PublishPress Revisions Pro allows you to update your published pages with teamwork and precision.
• PublishPress Series Pro enables you to group content together into a series

Together, these plugins are a suite of powerful publishing tools for WordPress. If you need to create a professional workflow in WordPress, with moderation, revisions, permissions and more… then you should try PublishPress.

Bug Reports

Bug reports for PublishPress Future are welcomed in our repository on GitHub. Please note that GitHub is not a support forum, and that issues that are not properly qualified as bugs will be closed.

[4.3.0] – 08 Jan, 2025

Added

• Add new variables selector and an expression builder (Issue #976).
• Add support to metadata in the variables resolvers and post type variables (Issue #1069, #939).
• Add the site ID to the site data type schema.
• Add the post author property to the post data type schema in the workflow editor (Issue #947).
• Add the post slug property to the post data type schema in the workflow editor.
• Add new trigger: Post is Published – PRO (Issue #944).
• Add new trigger: Post Status Changes – PRO (Issue #945).
• Add new trigger: Post is Scheduled – PRO (Issue #946).
• Add new trigger: Post Meta Changed – PRO (Issue #1059).
• Add new action: Post Meta Add – PRO (Issue #732).
• Add new action: Post Meta Delete – PRO (Issue #732).
• Add new action: Post Meta Update – PRO (Issue #732).
• Add the option to change manually enabled workflows in the bulk edit screen (Issue #942).
• Add the “Save as current status” shortcut to the workflow editor (CTRL/CMD + S) (Issue #1084).
• Add new display settings to customize the shortcode output (Issue #203).
• Add new step setting field to customize the step label in the workflow editor (Issue #1090).
• Add Future Action data support in the workflow editor, allowing to reference future actions in expressions (Issue #948).

Changed

• Replace text fields and input/variables selectors on step settings with the new expression builder (Issue #976).
• Changed the border of selected steps to dashed line.
• Moved the panel “Step Data Flow” to the developer mode.
• Removed the arrow indicator from the workflow title and added a new Status column to the workflows list screen (Issue #970).
• Post’s variable resolver now also accept a property without post_ prefix.
• User’s variable resolver now also accept a property without user_ prefix.
• Changed the options in the “Debug Data” field to be more intuitive allowing a custom data expression to be selected.
• The conditional step now uses the new expression builder.
• Improved the UI in the conditional step settings.
• Added field descriptions to the post query step settings panel (Issue #1081).
• Only display the bulk edit option “Update Future Action from Post Metadata” if feature is enabled (Issue #622).
• Updated language files.
• Remove focus from the toolbar Delete button when workflow step is selected (Issue #1083).
• Improved the text in the variables selector modal.

Fixed

• Fix error when the date or time format is empty in the settings page (Issue #212).
• Fix empty title and label in the future action panel when custom title and label are not set (Issue #1075).
• Fix the width of the checkbox in the future action panel (#1076).
• Fix the permalink in the Post Updated trigger for the post before variable.
• Fix the variable names in the “Add extra terms to post” step (Issue #1079).
• Fix the validation message for the recipient field in the Send Email step (Issue #1078).
• Fix the date format in the shortcode.
• Fix loading a workflow that doesn’t have a specific step type (Issue #883).
• Fix the first save of a workflow to transit from auto-saved to draft (Issue #1086).
• Fix warning about deprecated jQuery click() method in the workflow editor.
• Fix the auto-layout algorithm to avoid overlapping edges and correctly dimension each node and spacing between nodes (Issue #1102).
• Fix the warning about deprecated method next in the class ActionScheduler_Schedule (Issue #1107).

Developers

• Deprecated the method get_wp_date in the class PostExpirator_Util and use the method getWpDate from the class `PublishPressFutureFrameworkWordPressFacadeDateTimeFacade instead.
• Deprecated the method wp_timezone_string in the class PostExpirator_Util and use the method getTimezoneString from the class PublishPressFutureFrameworkSystemDateTimeHandler instead.
• Deprecated the method get_timezone_offset in the class PostExpirator_Util.
• Deprecated the method sanitize_array_of_integers in the class PostExpirator_Util.
• Add new param $metaValue to the method deleteMeta in the class PublishPressFutureFrameworkWordPressModelsPostModel.
• Remove the steps property from the workflow data type schema.

[4.2.0] – 09 Dec, 2024

Added

• Add new admin page to export and import workflows and plugin settings (Issue #704).
• Add global variable global.execution_id to the workflow engine to identify the current execution of the workflow.
• Add setting fields to customize the metabox title and checkbox label (Issue #227).
• Add method disableExpiration to the class PublishPressFutureModulesExpiratorModelsExpirablePostModel.
• Add * to indicate required fields in the workflow editor (Issue #974).
• Add new setting to disable/enable the screenshot feature in the workflow editor (Issue #1066).
• Add new Custom Data option to “Ray – Debug step” to debug custom expressions on workflows (Issue #1067).
• Add support to metadata when evaluating expressions in a workflow. Post, site, user and workflow (post) metadata are now available when evaluating expressions (Issue #1069).
• Add support to custom email addresses using the post metadata when sending emails in a workflow (Issue …