Last updated - July 8, 2021

There may have been instances where you wanted to duplicate a WordPress page or post so that you can make changes without touching the original source. This usually happens when an editor wants a junior author to make changes to his work without affecting his original article.

Of course, you could copy the whole textual content to a text document, but what if there media elements, website theme elements, and page builder elements that may not replicate correctly in the duplicated document?

There are also instances where you are designing the website and want to perform A/B Testing by creating two versions of a web page, landing page, or a product page. You would need most of the content in both the versions of the pages. Hence, you need to find easy ways to duplicate a page in WordPress.

In this article, we will discuss methods to duplicate a post in WordPress. Actually both pages and blog posts can be managed in this manner. We will look into methods from manual, straight-forward approaches to using plugins.

Refer to our article on how to duplicate a WordPress page to see a specific example with video for a WordPress page.

How to Duplicate a Post in WordPress?

There are two simple ways to duplicate a post in WordPress:

1. Without Plugins
   • Copy-pasting content in the Gutenberg editor
   • Copy-pasting content in the Classic editor
2. With WordPress Plugins (Recommended)

The methods involving without plugins are best suited when you have to duplicate one or two posts. For duplicating more number of posts and for an easier approach, it is always best to use the plugins.

Let’s understand each method in detail. 

1. Without Plugins

i) Copy-pasting content in the Gutenberg editor

If you are using the Gutenberg editor, you should note that the latest versions come with a simple setting that lets you copy the whole content of the page/post including images with proper formatting.

For demonstration purposes, let us open a WordPress post in the Gutenberg editor.

1. Click on the breadcrumb icon (three vertical dots) placed on the top right corner of the editor interface.
2. From the listed menu items, click on the Copy All Content option, as shown in the screenshot below.

3. You can then add a new WordPress post, enter a suitable title and paste the content in the first block of the editor. The complete content with the original formatting will be pasted in your new post. You can then edit, update, or play around the duplicated post.

In the below screenshot, you can see the duplicated post from our WordPress site.

Easy isn’t it? 

ii) Copy-pasting content in the Classic editor

If you are still using the WordPress Classic editor, there is a way too!

1. Open a WordPress post in the Classic editor.
2. Switch to the Text mode and copy all the content of the post, as shown in the screenshot below.

3. Just like in the previous method, add a new WordPress post, give a suitable title, and paste the content. Make sure you have switched to the Text mode in the new blog post.

4. Finally, switch to the Visual mode to see the duplicated content in the new post. You can then go ahead with editing the content, while your original source remains untouched.

Note: The above two methods seem simple, but are inefficient when you have a lot of pages/posts to duplicate. Hence, like always, there are plugins to make your job a lot easier, which we will discuss in our next method. 

2. With WordPress Plugins (Recommended)

While there are plugins to clone, migrate or backup an entire site, there are also plugins to duplicate pages and posts as well. There are various free as well as premium plugins in the market.

Let us look at some of the free plugins to duplicate a page.

i) Duplicate Post

This is one of the most popular plugins for duplicating posts. The plugin allows you to make copies of your original posts and edit them. The plugin provides several ways to clone the pages and posts. In the WordPress Posts dashboard, you can either click on the Clone option to clone the post right away or click on the New Draft option to make a WordPress duplicate page and open for editing.

You can also clone the post/page in the editing process. You can click Copy to a new draft which is placed in the publishing meta-box or in the top WordPress admin bar, as shown in the screenshot below.

One of the major highlights of the plugin is its ability to clone pages/posts in bulk. To do this, you just need to select multiple posts in the WordPress Posts dashboard and select the Clone option from the Bulk Action drop-down list, as shown in the screenshot below.

This feature can come quite handy if you want to duplicate multiple pages or posts at once.

Download the plugin

ii) Duplicate Page

This is another useful plugin that lets you duplicate posts and pages easily. You can simply click on the Duplicate This! link to create a WordPress duplicated page/post, from the WordPress Posts dashboard, as shown in the below screenshot.

This setting is also available in the individual edit page/post located in the Publish meta-box, as shown in the screenshot below.

In addition to this, the core plugin settings allow you to configure the duplication. You can choose the desired editor, post status, clone link redirection, and duplicate post suffix.

The plugin also comes in Pro version that allows you to duplicate pages and restrict only certain users to access the duplicated copies, changing the title of the duplicated page, post prefix, post suffix, and several other filters.

Download the plugin

You can also watch the below video tutorial.

Conclusion

While duplicating pages or posts seem easy, it should be done only when it is really necessary. Creating multiple copies of your content can affect your website’s structure as well as SEO. Search engines hate multiple copies of the same content. Hence, make sure you keep only one copy after making the required changes. You could also check duplicated content in your site using sites like Siteliner, Sitechecker, and CopyScape.

Did any of the methods work for you? Or have any queries? Do let us know in the comments!

Suggested reading:

• How to Manage Automatic WordPress Backup with Plugins?
• How to Backup WordPress Site Files and Databases?

You can check out blog articles on WordPress Basics, WordPress Security & Performance, or WooCommerce customizations for learning about different aspects of WordPress and WooCommerce.

Or continue exploring LearnWoo for more amazing articles.