If you’ve worked with WordPress for a while, you’ve likely found yourself in search of an easy way to duplicate a WordPress page. Maybe you were creating a new page and wanted to structure it like one of your older pages. Or perhaps you were writing a blog post and wanted to use older content as a starting point for a new entry.
Whatever the case may be, you would have eventually discovered that WordPress does not offer an obvious way to duplicate content by default. Fortunately, multiple tools exist for those hoping to clone a WordPress page. You just have to know where to find them.
What content can I clone with WordPress?
Before starting in, it’s important to understand what items you can and cannot easily clone with WordPress. Powerful cloning plugins will allow you to clone all of an entry’s essential elements, including its content, title, custom field values, and more.
But if you would prefer to duplicate WordPress pages without a plugin, the cloning process can be more involved. This is especially true if you maintain a complex website that relies heavily on custom fields, as field values will need to be matched by hand.
Regardless of which approach you take, the cloning process works for both pages and posts. You’ll have fewer options if you need to duplicate entries of a custom post type, especially if the type relies on the platform’s classic editor. There will be more on that ahead.
Clone WordPress Pages or Posts
Assuming you don’t need to duplicate entries of a custom post type and are cool with the idea of activating a WordPress plugin for the task, the Yoast Duplicate Post plugin makes easy work of content cloning. It’s completely free and very lightweight, adding no overhead to the public-facing side of your website. This makes the plugin great for your WordPress website’s page experience.
The WordPress plugin repository contains several plugins that can clone content, but Yoast’s is the most popular. As its name suggests, it is maintained in part by the same team who offers the powerful Yoast SEO plugin.
Install the Yoast Duplicate Post Plugin
You can install the Yoast Duplicate Post plugin the same way you would install any widely-available WordPress plugin. The quickest way is to navigate to the Add Plugins screen of your WordPress control panel and search for “Yoast Duplicate Post.”
Locate the result developed by Enrico Battocchi and Team Yoast then hit the “Install Now” button. Once installed, you can go ahead and activate the plugin to begin using it. Alternatively, you can download the plugin ZIP from its repository listing and manually upload it to your WordPress website.
Clone a Single WordPress Page
Yoast’s plugin adds several elements to your WordPress control panel in order to streamline the process of cloning or duplicating entries. To explore a few of these elements, navigate to the Pages screen of your control panel.
Pick a page from the list of entries and hover your cursor over it if you’re working from a computer. Among the collection of revealed links are a couple of new additions. If you’re interacting with a published page, these links include “Clone,” “New Draft,” and “Rewrite & Republish.”
To duplicate a WordPress page in the more traditional sense, you’ll click or tap the “Clone” link. This will create a copy of your entry without affecting the original. You should use this link if you don’t want your newest entry to overwrite the old one.
Otherwise, use the “Rewrite & Republish” link. Doing so will create a copy of your page and will forward you directly to the Edit Page screen.
You will be invited to republish your page after you’ve finished making changes. When you do, the newer copy of your WordPress page will completely replace the old one. For this reason, you should avoid the republish feature if you hope to create several similar copies of a single entry.
Whether you choose to clone a page or republish it, Yoast Duplicate Post will transfer all of the information from your original entry to the new one. Everything from your entry’s title and content to its custom field values will be copied, making Yoast’s plugin a fantastic tool for webmasters looking to create an exact copy of a WordPress page.
Clone Multiple Pages
In addition to the new links in your list of WordPress entries, Yoast Duplicate Post adds items to the Bulk actions menu. Return to the Pages screen or the Posts screen of your WordPress control panel to check them out.
Start by selecting one or more items from a list of entries by checking the boxes alongside them. Next, expand the “Bulk actions” dropdown above the list.
You should find that the menu includes two new items: Clone and Rewrite & Republish. These items work a lot like the links explored above but can be applied to multiple entries all at once. To test this functionality, select one of the two new items from the Bulk actions dropdown then hit “Apply” with entries selected.
All of the newer entries will be marked as drafts. Likewise, any entries waiting to be republished will be marked as such. With your drafts in place, you’re ready to update content and publish or republish entries as needed.
Duplicate a WordPress Page Without a Plugin
For the minimalists out there, newer versions of WordPress offer tools that can be used to duplicate a WordPress page without a plugin. These tools aren’t as thorough or as easy to use as Yoast’s Duplicate Post plugin, but for those that need to clone a single entry or two, an additional plugin can be overkill anyway.
Note that this approach will duplicate WordPress page content but none of an entry’s elements. For instance, items like titles, featured images, and custom field values will need to be copied by hand. This may or may not be a big deal depending on the complexity of your WordPress website.
Copy Entry Content from the Ellipsis menu
Naturally, if you want to duplicate a WordPress page without a plugin, you’ll need to take an extra step or two. To get started, head to the Edit Page or Edit Post screen of the entry you want to clone.
From here, click or tap to expand the vertical ellipsis menu in the top-right corner of the screen. You should spot a “Copy all content” item among the list of menu items. Click it to copy the current entry’s content to your device’s clipboard.
Create a New Entry and Paste Clipboard Contents
Next, you’ll want to create a new page or post so that you can paste the copied content to it. And it actually doesn’t matter whether the original entry was a page or a post, which is one reason why a user might choose to duplicate WordPress posts without a plugin. Content can be copied from one post type to another using this approach.
With a blank block editor in front of you and focus given to an empty block, paste your clipboard’s content using your preferred method. By default, the control + V keys will paste from a Windows machine while command + V will get the job done on a Mac.
Transfer Other Entry Elements by Hand
Finally, you’ll need to manually transfer other entry items from your original page to the new one. Again, items like an entry’s title, featured image, and custom fields will all need to be moved by hand when you choose to duplicate a WordPress page without a plugin.
When you’ve finished transferring any missing items, go ahead and publish your page or post. And with that, you’ve successfully cloned a WordPress entry without the need for third-party tools!
Another advantage to this approach is that it works for entries of custom post types as long as those types leverage the WordPress block editor. What’s more, you can even copy content between two different WordPress websites using this method.
Copy a WordPress Page to Another Site
The block editor makes it fairly easy to copy a WordPress page to another site, and you don’t need a separate plugin to do it! Instead, just head to the Edit Page screen of the entry you’d like to clone or duplicate.
Expand the vertical ellipsis menu in the top-right corner of the screen then click the “Copy all content” link. With the contents of the original entry in your clipboard, navigate to the control panel of the WordPress website you’d like to copy to.
From the control panel of the destination website, create a blank entry and give focus to an empty editor block. Simply paste the contents of your clipboard to create a block-for-block copy of the original WordPress page.
It’s worth noting that you’ll still need to move elements like an entry’s page title and featured image by hand when you copy a WordPress page to another site this way. Additionally, you’ll need to be mindful of media blocks as well as non-standard blocks from third parties. Images from the source website will be embedded by default, while block types from the source website won’t display properly if they’re not available to the destination website.
Copy Several Entries to Another WordPress Site
Do you need to copy several WordPress pages to another website? A frequently overlooked WordPress feature makes the process surprisingly straightforward.
First, navigate to the control panel of the source website and expand the admin menu’s Tools submenu. Click or tap the submenu’s “Export” item. WordPress will direct you to the platform’s Export screen.
From here, select the type of content you’d like to export and apply entry filters as needed. With your selections made, hit the “Download Export File” button and save the XML file to your device.
Navigate to the WordPress control panel of the destination website then to the Import screen. You’ll find a link to the screen in the same Tools submenu of the admin menu.
The Import screen lists several platforms from which you can import content. Locate WordPress near the bottom of the list and click or tap the “Install Now” link beneath it if necessary. When the importer is ready, go ahead and run it.
Finally, select your XML file from the Import WordPress screen and click the “Upload file and import” button. Select a user to which copied entries should be assigned and check the “Download and import file attachments” box. Pages from the source website should be immediately copied to your destination website.
Create New Content for Your WordPress Website in Record Time
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes time to create new content for your WordPress website. If you’re previously created entries similar to those you’re working on now, it only makes sense to duplicate a WordPress page to speed up the publishing process a bit.
Whether you’re publishing to a single site or copying between multiple websites, there’s a tool for the job. Pick your favorite and enjoy the time savings!