Archive Content with Archived Post Status

Actually, no, they are not the same thing.

The Draft status is a “pre-published” status that is reserved for content that is still being worked on. You can still make changes to content marked as Draft, and you can preview your changes.

The Private status is a special kind of published status. It means the content is published, but only certain logged-in users can view it.

The Archived post status, on the other hand, is meant to be a “post-published” status. Once a post has been set to Archived it can no longer be edited or viewed.

Of course, you can always change the status back to Draft or Publish if you want to be able to edit its content again.

Yes, there is nothing wong with trashing old content. And the behavior of the Archived status is very similar to that of trashing.

However, WordPress permanently deletes trashed posts after 30 days (see here).

This is what makes the Archived post status handy. You can unpublish content without having to delete it forever.

This plugin does not have a settings page. However, there are numerous hooks available in the plugin so you can customize default behaviors. Many of those hooks are listed below in this FAQ.

Archived content is by default viewable for users with the any user with the read_private_posts capability.

This means if you are viewing your site while being logged in as an Editor or Administrator, you will see the archived content. However, lower user roles and non-logged-in users will not see the archived content.

You can change the default read capability by adding this hook to your theme’s functions.php file or as an MU plugin:

function my_aps_default_read_capability( $capability ) {
    $capability = 'read';

    return $capability;
}
add_filter( 'aps_default_read_capability', 'my_aps_default_read_capability' );

Add these hooks to your theme’s functions.php file or as an MU plugin:

add_filter( 'aps_status_arg_public', '__return_true' );
add_filter( 'aps_status_arg_private', '__return_false' );
add_filter( 'aps_status_arg_exclude_from_search', '__return_false' );

You can change the post status name, the “Archived” string, by adding the code snippet to your theme’s functions.php file or as an MU plugin:

add_filter( 'aps_archived_label_string', function( $label ) {
    $label = 'Custom Label'; // replace with your custom label
    return $label;
});

This will change the name used in the admin and on the post title label (see below).

This plugin automatically adds Archived: to the title of archived content. (Note that archived content is only viewable to logged in users with the read_private_posts capability).

You can modify the label text, the separator, whether it appears before or after the title, or disable it entirely.

Follow the examples below, adding the code snippet to your theme’s functions.php file or as an MU plugin.

Remove the label

add_filter( 'aps_title_label', '__return_false' );

Place the label after the title

add_filter( 'aps_title_label_before', '__return_false' );

Change the separator

The separator is the string between the “Archived” label and the post title, including spaces. When the label appears before the title, the separator is a colon and space :, if the label is placed after the title it is a dash with spaces on each side -.

You can customize the separator with the following filter:

add_filter( 'aps_title_separator', function( $sep ) {
    $sep = ' ~ '; // replace with your separator
    return $sep;
});

Add these hooks to your theme’s functions.php file or as an MU plugin:

add_filter( 'aps_status_arg_public', '__return_false' );
add_filter( 'aps_status_arg_private', '__return_false' );
add_filter( 'aps_status_arg_show_in_admin_all_list', '__return_false' );

Please note that there is a bug in core that requires public and private to be set to false in order for the aps_status_arg_show_in_admin_all_list to also be false.

Add this hook to your theme’s functions.php file or as an MU plugin:

function my_aps_excluded_post_types( $post_types ) {
    $post_types[] = 'my_custom_post_type';

    return $post_types;
}
add_filter( 'aps_excluded_post_types', 'my_aps_excluded_post_types' );

Don’t worry, your content is not gone it’s just inaccessible. Unfortunately, using a custom post status like archive is only going to work while the plugin is active.

If you have archived content and deactivate or delete this plugin, that content will disappear from view. Your content is in the database – WordPress just no longer recognizes the post_status because this plugin is not there to set this post status up.

If you no longer need the plugin but want to retain your archived content:
1. Activate this plugin
2. Switch all the archived posts/pages/post types to a native post status, like ‘draft’ or ‘publish’
3. THEN deactivate/delete the plugin.

Please reach out on the Github Issues or in the WordPress support forums.

Please reach out on the Github Issues or in the WordPress support forums.