How to Clone and Copy WordPress Post

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You might require to Copy or Clone WordPress post whether you use the old Classic Editor or new Block Editor.

Contextually if you’re still using the traditional Classic editor and cannot get confident enough to start using Gutenberg or Block Editor, follow our comprehensive guides on Block Editor and how to confidently use it. Get updated with everything that add value to WordPress.

Copying or cloning post from Classic editor or Block editor are the same except the slight difference. You can do it both by plugin process and manually.

This to some extent depends on the situations and your objectives with the copied post.

There might have different situations for you to copy a WordPress post–

  • You duplicate the whole post-content to use as draft.
  • You copy the whole post-content to create a new post after modification.
  • You copy the whole post to use only the post structure for another post.
  • You can clone a post along with all Title, Permalink, Tags, Categories etc. for backup or publish it to other media.

Whatever the necessity is, copying or cloning a WordPress post is not so tough.

Whether in Classic or Block, you can copy a WordPress post-

  • by Copy-pasting on selection of Text.
  • by using Copy Content option.
  • with the help of Plugin.

Copy-pasting

Copy and clone WordPress post

Classic Editor

In the context of Classic Editor, there is no option to copy the whole post with a single click. you can just select the post content, copy it and paste it on another location.

To do this tasks thoroughly and proper way, do the followings-

  • Open the post which you like to copy.
  • Select the Text mode (it is wise and safer to copy in Text mode).
  • Put the cursor anywhere on the post-content.
  • To select the content, press Ctrl + A from Keyboard.
  • Now press Ctrl + C to copy it.
  • Next add a new post to another location or site by following Post >> Add New from WordPress Dashboard.
  • Select the Text mode if that is already in Visual mode.
  • Put the cursor on the Content field.
  • Now paste the copied content by pressing Ctrl + V from Keyboard. And you’re done. If you need copy the Title and other things separately one by one.

Block Editor

In the context of Block Editor, you get a one-click Copy option on the right panel of the Post editor. For this-

  • Click the More options (Three-dot menu) on the upper-right corner of the Editor’s screen.
  • Now, under Tools, click Copy all content. All your post-content is copied.

Alternatively, you can copy the content by selecting HTML texts. But it is not possible from block-level editing mode. So you have to switch to ‘Code Editor‘ mode. To do this-

  • Click the More options (Three-dot menu) on the upper-right corner of the Editor’s screen.
  • Now, under Editor, click Code editor. Code Editor mode will open.
  • Next, put the cursor anywhere on the content space.
  • To select, press Ctrl + A from Keyboard.
  • Now press Ctrl + C to copy it.
  • Next, add a new post to another location or site by following Post >> Add New from WordPress Dashboard where Block editor is on.
  • Select the Code Editor from Three-dot menu options.
  • Put the cursor on the content field.
  • Now paste the copied content by pressing Ctrl + V from Keyboard. And you’re done. If you need to copy the Title, Permalink etc. separately one by one.

Copy entire post by Plugin

By using a Plugin, you can clone a post entirely- content with Title, Permalink, Categories, Tags and other Posting customization.

Among such plugins, which I can suggest is Yoast Duplicate Post. This is a light-weight, excellently-featured plugin that lets you choose which elements you wish to include in the Copy. You can also fix a Title prefix and a Title suffix to differentiate the copy from the original.

For this, install the Yoast Duplicate Post plugin and Activate it. If you need, follow this guideline on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After activation, follow these steps to copy a post-

  • Open the Post window by clicking Post menu from left panel of the WordPress Dashboard.
  • Have an careful look at the Post Title list. You see, below each title, there is an option ‘Clone’
  • Click the Clone option. You see the copied post is included on top of the post list with added Prefix and/or Suffix if you fixed them previously with title.

Hope you could easily capture this presentation on how to copy and clone a WordPress post.

Happy Blogging!!