Description
Share a link to anonymous users to preview a draft of a post (or any other public post type) before it is published.
Have you ever been writing a post with the help of someone who does not have access to your site and needed to give them the ability to preview it before publishing? This plugin takes care of that by generating an URL with an expiring nonce that can be given out for public preview.
Previously this plugin was maintained by Matt Martz and was an idea of Jonathan Dingman. Photo by Annelies Geneyn.
Usage
- To enable a public post preview check the box in the document settings. In the classic editor it’s in the “Publish” meta box.
- The link will be displayed if the checkbox is checked, you can copy and share the link with your friends.
- To disable a preview uncheck the box again.
Screenshots
Block Editor 
Classic Editor
Installation
For an installation through WordPress:
- Go to the ‘Add New’ plugins screen in your WordPress admin area
- Search for ‘Public Post Preview’
- Click ‘Install Now’ and activate the plugin
For a manual installation via FTP:
- Upload the
public-post-previewdirectory to the/wp-content/plugins/directory - Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ screen in your WordPress admin area
To upload the plugin through WordPress, instead of FTP:
- Upload the downloaded zip file on the ‘Add New’ plugins screen (see the ‘Upload’ tab) in your WordPress admin area and activate.
FAQ
-
I can’t find the option for preview links. Where is it?
-
The checkbox is only available for non-published posts and once a post was saved as a draft.
-
After some time the preview link returns the message “The link has been expired!”. Why?
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The plugin generates an URL with an expiring nonce. By default a link “lives” 48 hours. After 48 hours the link is expired and you need to copy and share a new link which is automatically generated on the same place under the editor.
-
48 hours are not enough to me. Can I extend the nonce time?
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Yes, of course. Go to Settings > Reading > Public Post Preview and increase the
Expiration Time setting. You can also use the filterppp_nonce_life. Example for 5 days:add_filter( 'ppp_nonce_life', 'my_nonce_life' ); function my_nonce_life() { return 5 * DAY_IN_SECONDS; }
Reviews
Contributors & Developers
“Public Post Preview” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
“Public Post Preview” has been translated into 26 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.
Translate “Public Post Preview” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
2.10.0 (2022-11-19):
- Compatibility with WordPress 6.1.
- Integrate with User Switching: Direct the user to the public preview of a post when they switch off from the post editing screen. Props @johnbillion.
2.9.3 (2021-03-12):
- Compatibility with WordPress 5.7.
- Create a fresh preview URL when enabling public preview.
- Add check for possibly undefined PHP “superglobals”. Props @waviaei.
For more see CHANGELOG.md.