Managing WordPress posts using WP-CLI

Take a Snapshot

Before running code that edits your posts, you should take a backup of your website. Our Snapshot guide shows you how to do this.

Listing your posts

The command to list all posts on your site is:

wp post list --post_type=post

Create a post

The command to create a draft post on your site is:

wp post create --post_type=post --post_title='A test post' --post_status=draft

Delete a post

You will need the ID number of the post from wp post list in order to delete a post, the command to delete a post on your site is:

wp post delete <ID>

You need to replace <ID> with the ID number of your post.

Find posts by author

The command to search posts by a specific author is:

wp post list --post_type=post --author=<USERNAME>

You need to update <USERNAME> with the username of the author you want to search for.

Find draft posts

The command to search for all draft posts is:

wp post list --post-type=post --post_status=draft

Find published posts

The command to search for all published posts is:

wp post list --post-type=post --post_status=published

Changing a post status

You will need the ID number of the post from wp post list in order to update a post’s status.

The command to set a post to draft is:

wp post update <ID> --post_status=draft

The command to set a post to published is:

wp post update <ID> --post_status=published

You need to replace <ID> with the ID number of your post.

Toggle comment status

You will need the ID number of the post from wp post list in order to change comment status.

The command to disable comments on a post is:

wp post update <ID> --comment_status=closed

The command to enable comments on a post is:

wp post update <ID> --comment_status=open

You need to replace <ID> with the ID number of your post.

Toggle ping status

You will need the ID number of the post from wp post list in order to change ping status.

The command to disable comments on a post is:

wp post update <ID> --ping_status=closed

The command to enable comments on a post is:

wp post update <ID> --ping_status=open

You need to replace <ID> with the ID number of your post.

Add a tag to a post

You will need the ID number of the post from wp post list in order to add post tags.

The command to add a tag to a post is:

wp post term add <ID> post_tag <TAG>

You need to replace <ID> with the ID number of your post, and <TAG> with the word you wish to add to the tag list.

Change a post category

You will need the ID number of the post from wp post list in order to assign post categories.

The command to assign a post category:

wp post update <ID> --post_category=<CATEGORY>

You need to replace <ID> with the ID number of your post, and <CATEGORY> with the name, or ID of your post category.

Disable comments for ALL posts

The command to disable comments for all posts is:

wp post list --format=ids | xargs wp post update --comment_status=closed

The command to enable comments for all posts is:

wp post list --format=ids | xargs wp post update --comment_status=open

Set posts to draft within date range

The command for setting a post range to drafts is:

wp post update $(wp post list --post__in=$(wp db query 'SELECT ID FROM wp_posts WHERE post_date>="2014-01-01" AND post_date<="2014-01-02";' --skip-column-names | paste -s -d ',' -) --format=ids) --post_status=draft

You will need to update ‘2014-01-01’ to be the start date you want posts to be edited FROM, and ‘2014-02-01’ should be changed to the date you want posts to be edited TO, both in YYYY-DD-MM format.

You may also need to update wp_posts to match your table prefix if you are using a custom prefix.

List posts without featured images

The command to find all posts without featured images is:

wp db query "SELECT DISTINCT ID, post_title FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type='post' AND ID NOT IN (SELECT post_id FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key='_thumbnail_id')"

You may need to edit this query if you are using a custom table prefix.

List posts with featured images

The command to find all posts without featured images is:

wp db query "SELECT DISTINCT ID, post_title FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type='post' AND ID IN (SELECT post_id FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key='_thumbnail_id')"

You may need to edit this query if you are using a custom table prefix.

List posts without a Yoast keyword set

This command only works on websites using Yoast.

The command to find all posts without a keyword set is:

wp db query "SELECT DISTINCT ID, post_title FROM wp_posts WHERE post_type='post' AND ID NOT IN (SELECT post_id FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key='_yoast_wpseo_focuskw')"

You may need to edit this query if you are using a custom table prefix.