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Best WordPress Plugins for Drafts

15 plugins compared · Updated August 2026 · Drafts

All Free only 15 Premium only

Choosing a WordPress plugin for drafts comes down to a few things: whether it is still actively maintained, whether real users rate it well, and whether it does the specific job you need without dragging the rest of the site down.

We ranked 15 plugins using our WPScore, which weighs the user rating (adjusted for how many people actually rated it), how many sites run it, how recently it was updated, and which WordPress version it is tested against. 15 of them have enough public data to be scored; the rest are listed below the ranked block, clearly marked, rather than being given a number we cannot justify.

How this list is funded. Some links here earn us a commission if you buy. It costs you nothing extra, and it does not move anything up the list — the order comes from the WPScore, which is calculated from public ratings, install counts and update history. See the method.

At a glance

  1. 1. Public Post Preview Best overall 87/100
  2. 2. Share a Draft 80/100
  3. 3. WP-DraftsForFriends 80/100
  4. 4. Hide Drafts in Menus 79/100
  5. 5. Controlled Draft Publisher 77/100
  6. 6. Draft List 76/100
  7. 7. Duplicate and Auto Draft Cleaner 74/100
  8. 8. Bulk Post Status Update 69/100
  9. 9. Auto Post Expire 67/100
  10. 10. Quick Drafts Access 66/100
  11. 11. Draft 60/100
  12. 12. Post Draft Preview 54/100
  13. 13. Post Status Menu Items 47/100
  14. 14. Post Edit Toolbar 47/100
  15. 15. Draft Notifier 46/100
1 Public Post Preview
Best overall Free by Dominik Schilling

Public Post Preview

Allow anonymous users to preview a draft of a post before it is published.

4.5★
from 80 ratings
100k+
active installs
Updated
Jun 2026
Tested to
WP 7.0.4
87

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
3 WP-DraftsForFriends
Free by Lester Chan

WP-DraftsForFriends

Now you don't need to add friends as users to the blog in order to let them preview your drafts

5★
from 6 ratings
1k+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
80

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
5 Controlled Draft Publisher
Free by techygeekshome

Controlled Draft Publisher

Publishes draft posts on a configurable interval per post type, with optional publishing-window/weekend restrictions and email alerts.

5★
from 1 ratings
200+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.0.4
77

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
6 Draft List
Free by David Artiss

Draft List

WordPress plugin to manage and promote your unpublished content.

4.6★
from 5 ratings
60+
active installs
Updated
Aug 2026
Tested to
WP 7.1
76

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
10 Quick Drafts Access
Free by Scott Reilly

Quick Drafts Access

Adds links to 'All Drafts' and 'My Drafts' under Posts, Pages, and other custom post type sections in the admin menu.

5★
from 7 ratings
400+
active installs
Updated
Apr 2025
Tested to
WP 6.8.8
66

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
11 Draft
Free by leeshadle

Draft

Add Tailwind CSS to WordPress, in seconds.

5★
from 4 ratings
600+
active installs
Updated
Sep 2024
Tested to
WP 6.6.7
60

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
14 Post Edit Toolbar
Free by greghl

Post Edit Toolbar

Adds a pair of dropdowns 'Page list' and 'Post List' to the WordPress toolbar of the most recently edited pages, drafts, future sc …

5★
from 11 ratings
80+
active installs
Updated
Dec 2015
Tested to
WP 4.4.34
47

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org
15 Draft Notifier
Free by Michael Adams (mdawaffe)

Draft Notifier

Draft Notifier sends a notification email to your blog's admin address when a post written by a Contributor is Submitted for Review.

5★
from 1 ratings
100+
active installs
Updated
Jun 2010
Tested to
WP 3.0.5
46

WPScore

Read review View on WordPress.org