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Deleting & Restoring WordPress Posts

Delete and Restore

1

Move to Trash

Posts → hover → Trash. Soft delete — recoverable for 30 days.

2

Empty Trash to Permanently Delete

Trash filter → Empty Trash for irreversible removal.

3

Restore from Trash

Click Trash filter → Restore on the post you want back.

4

Adjust Trash Retention

Edit wp-config.php: define('EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS', 7) for shorter retention.

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Deleting WordPress posts is a breeze, and so is restoring posts should you change your mind. Watch our video tutorial to find out how!

Deleting & Restoring Posts

I’m going to go to the Sidebar Menu, hover over Posts and go to All Posts.

It’s going to give me a list of all of the posts ever created for this particular site.

You’ll notice there’s the Hawaii post that I’ve created. However, there is a "Hello World" post that came from the installation, so I probably don’t want that there. But I might have created another post on my own that I want to trash.

It’s very easy to delete posts. You’ll notice when I hover over any of these list choices, there’s this little sub-menu that pops up. And Trash in the red will allow me to delete this. However, if I click on Trash, not only does it give me the ability to undo this, but the post is not truly gone. You’ll notice I have one post that’s published, but I also have one in the trash.

I can go into the trash, and now if I hover, I can restore and put it back into its time sequence of when it was created initially. However, if I want to get rid of it (I recommend doing so because you’re paying for storage), I can click on Delete Permanently. Once I do this, it’s gone—I can’t retrieve it anymore.

The message now reads, “No posts in the trash, " and you’ll notice I’ve got one living post, and it’s published. If I go back here, that’s all we’ve got.

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