Public Post Preview

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. Thanks to Hans Dinkelberg for his photo.

Usage

To enable a public post preview check the box below the edit post box.
The link will be displayed if the checkbox is checked, just copy and share the link with your friends.
To disable a preview just uncheck the box.

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?

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?

Yes, of course. You can use the filter ppp_nonce_life. Example for 5 days:

add_filter( 'ppp_nonce_life', 'my_nonce_life' );
function my_nonce_life() {
    return 5 * DAY_IN_SECONDS;
}

Or use the Public Post Preview Configurator.

No longer works

By Json Koning (minion08) on September 26, 2024

functionality is completely missing for me with the latest version of WP

A must have plugin

By Knut Sparhell (knutsp) on July 21, 2024

Works flawlessly.

It's an incredible plugin, exactly what I needed!

By Henry Douglas (henrydouglas) on May 5, 2024

It's an incredible plugin, exactly what I needed! Don't stop his development. I wish you much success!

Handy!

By Peter Ingersoll (Peter.Ingersoll) on February 7, 2024

Just used for a nice way for a client to approve new WooCommerce products. Easy-peasy.

Useful works great

By Will Skora (skorasaurus) on March 31, 2023

Useful; works great; have had it in production on websites for 2 years with no issues

Gread Plugin, but why isnt it thougt to the end?

By dosimo on March 29, 2023

I have been using this plugin for a very long time and like it. but I just don't understand why there is no setting where I can specify the validity period of the link. That would be so easy. Instead, I have to either manually mess around in the code or install a SEPARATE PLUGIN that does this really very simple job.

The plugin is really great, but apparently they just stopped at the crucial point. Really a great pity.

Why?

By Johnny (iida_wp) on November 20, 2022

This is a great plugin that should be officially incorporated into WordPress.

Great plugin

By hoseferrera on October 7, 2022

Helps me to share the preview before publish. Thanks

Preview only works for 48 hours which makes it useless for many clients

By Chris (xchristox) on August 12, 2022

I like the plugin, a lot. But it could be SO MUCH better if you could just extend the 48 hours to let's say, a week or even two. Because let's face it, most of us use this tool for clients so that they can see the work, before approving it. The thing is that they receive the preview mail and aren't able to check the preview in such a short time period. Add weekend and different time zones to that, and it makes this plugin pretty much useless because you keep sending preview links back and forth over and over again. The short timeframe makes the plugin so much worse than it could be. I really don't understand this choice. Yes, there is code that you can manually add. But the whole point of a plugin is to stay away from manual coding. And yes, there is also another plugin that lets you extend the preview time. But that means another plugin to keep up-to-date, more drag on the server and increasing security risks. So please. You can make this plugin 90% better just by increasing the timeframe, or letting the user decide the timeframe.

Very useful and simple plugin

By John Blackbourn (johnbillion) on July 14, 2022

This plugin does exactly what it needs to and nothing more. Very useful for previewing content before publication.

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.

Note: There will be NO settings page.

For an automatic 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-preview directory 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.

Version: 2.10.0
Last updated: 10 months ago
Active installations: 100K
WordPress version: 5.0
Tested up to: 6.4.5
PHP version: 5.6