Manage Posts in WordPress Multisite in One Place
In this tutorial, we will talk about WordPress multisite posts management. The thing is that if you have a multisite network installed, by default there is no place in the network admin dashboard where you can manage posts from all sites at the same time.
But I created a solution for you, guys, please take a look at this screenshot:
This page comes with the Multisite Indexer plugin, once you have installed and network activated the plugin, you need to visit its settings page “Settings > Network Index” and activate the “Network Posts” administration menu by clicking a checkbox:
After that, the “Network Posts” page will appear in your admin menu:
Right now, let me highlight some of the neat features of this page.
Order Multisite Posts by Title and Date
If you click on the heading of the “Title” or “Date” column, the posts will be ordered in ascending or descending order. It is actually one of the things you need my plugin for.
Because, if you decide to get all posts across your multisite network using only the switch_to_blog() function and the WP_Query class, you won’t be able to achieve that – your posts will be ordered by blogs first and only then by date or title.
But, my plugin allows you to properly order multisite posts by date or title on this admin page.
If you’re using the Network_Query class in your code, you can also order posts by slug, modified date, comment count, in random order, by a custom field value, and so on.
Search for Network Posts
You will love this feature guys because it allows you to search for posts across all sites in your multisite network, isn’t it convenient?
An example of how the search works is in the screenshot below:
By the way, if you’re interested in how to implement this kind of global search on your site pages, I have a separate tutorial about that.
Filter Multisite Posts by Date
I decided not to add a category filter because it is not that necessary, in my opinion, but a date filter is a “must.”
Here you go:
Bulk and Quick Actions
Last but not least, let’s take a look at the list of bulk and quick actions added by my plugin to the “Network Posts” page.
Let’s start with quick actions that appear when you hover over a specific post:
And here is the list:
| Quick Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Edit | This link leads to the post edit page on a subsite where it was created. |
| Move to Trash | Moves a post to the trash on its site. Available when the EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS constant is not set to 0. |
| View | Opens a post on its subsite. |
| Restore | Available when viewing the page with trashed posts. Restores a post. |
| Delete Permanently | Available when viewing the page with trashed posts or when the EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS constant is set to 0. Deletes a post permnently. |
Bulk actions:
| Bulk Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Move to Trash | Moves selected posts to the trash, of course, if the trash is enabled. |
| Restore | Restores selected posts from the trash. Available only when viewing the trash page. |
| Delete Permanently | Available when viewing the page with trashed posts or when the EMPTY_TRASH_DAYS constant is set to 0. Deletes selected posts permanently. |
| Empty Trash | It is not exactly a bulk action but a button with similar functionality. Permanently deletes all posts in the trash. |
That’s pretty much everything I wanted to tell you. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask in the comments below.
By the way, there is also an alternative approach to the multisite post management – you can use my other plugin, Simple Multisite Crossposting to crosspost (share) posts to a single specific site of your network, edit them there, and then sync changes back to subsites.
Misha Rudrastyh
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Oh, another question: does the plugin support custom post types? Especially post types which are added by plugins that are NOT installed network-wide?
Yes, it supports post types which are added by plugins that are activated only on a certain website.
However, if you would like a custom post type to appear on the “Network Posts” page, it is better to add it in the plugin settings in the “Default Post Types” field.
Hey Misha,
Is it possible to move posts between sites in the network
Hey John,
Absolutely, but you need my other plugin for that.
Hey Misha,
I need a feature to have all posts listed on single dashboard so that admin can approve posts. The idea is that author will have posts only in draft mode, then admin approves his post on his site. I suppose this case is possible via your plugin? This network dashboard comes out of the box, or you need to do a bit of custom coding with your Class for it?
Hey Goran,
Yes, it is possible. The “Network Posts” page mentioned in this post comes out of the box, yes.