WP-DraftsForFriends

This plugin generates a unique link you can send to a friend so they can read a post before you publish it. The link works for someone who is not logged in and has no account, it only ever opens the one post it was issued for, and it stops working by itself when the time you set runs out.

Everything happens under Posts -> WP-DraftsForFriends: pick an unpublished post, say how long the link should last, and copy the link it gives you. The list below shows every link you have out, how long each has left, and lets you extend or revoke them. The settings are the second tab of that same page.

Sharing takes the publish_posts capability rather than manage_options: a plugin for sharing your own drafts has no business asking for the capability that lets somebody reconfigure the site.

Modified from Drafts for Friends, originally by Neville Longbottom. The plugin icon is by Freepik from Flaticon.

Features

• A unique 32-character link per share, valid only for the post it was issued for
• An expiry you choose in seconds, minutes, hours or days, with a default you set once
• Works for a logged-out visitor with no account
• Scheduled and pending posts can be shared as well as drafts
• A box in the post editor that shows the post’s links and creates one on save
• A sortable, paginated list of every link you have out, with the time each has left
• Extend or revoke links in bulk
• Comments are forced closed on a shared draft
• Moving a post to the trash revokes its links; restoring the post brings them back
• Multisite-safe, including network activation

Donations

I spent most of my free time creating, updating, maintaining and supporting these plugins, if you really love my plugins and could spare me a couple of bucks, I will really appreciate it. If not feel free to use it without any obligations.

Usage

Go to Posts -> WP-DraftsForFriends. The page has two tabs, Shared Drafts and Settings.

Under Share a Draft, choose an unpublished post, set how long the link should last, and press Share Draft. The link appears in the list below. Hovering a row shows Edit Draft, which opens the post, and Copy Link, which puts the link on your clipboard ready to send to whoever needs it.

You can also share from inside the post editor. Every unpublished post has a Drafts for Friends box listing its links and the time each has left, each with a Copy Link button; tick Create a share link when this post is saved and the next save creates one. A published post needs no link — anybody can read it — so the box says only that.

The list shows every link you have out. Expires After counts down and then reads Expired. Twenty rows are shown at a time, every column except the link is sortable, and Screen Options changes how many rows you see.

To extend links, set Extend by to the duration you want to add, tick the rows, choose Extend Selected and press Apply. To revoke them, tick the rows and choose Revoke Selected. Both are bulk actions rather than links on each row, and deliberately so: a link is a GET, and a browser or link checker that quietly prefetches one would have revoked every share on the page before you knew about it.

The Settings tab sets the duration a new share starts on. It is only a starting value — both the share form and Extend by can be changed for one share without changing the setting. That tab takes manage_options, so an author sees the Shared Drafts tab and not the Settings one.

Anyone with the edit_others_posts capability — administrators and editors — sees every shared draft on the site and can share any unpublished post. Authors and contributors see only their own, and can only share posts they are allowed to edit.

Read the full description on the official page →