How to automatically expire content in WordPress

Decide what should happen when content reaches its expiry date. Moving a post or page to Draft is usually the safest choice because it removes the public version without deleting the content. Sending it to the Trash is more destructive and may permanently delete it later, depending on your WordPress trash settings.

Also decide whether expired content should redirect, display an update notice, or simply disappear. This matters for promotions, event pages and time-sensitive information because removing a page can leave visitors and search engines with a missing URL.

WordPress has no standard expiry-date control for already published posts or pages. The manual route requires a small custom plugin that stores an expiry date as post metadata, then schedules a one-time event with wp_schedule_single_event(). When that event runs, its callback can change the post with wp_update_post() or move it to the Trash with wp_trash_post().

The callback must be connected to the scheduled action, and the code should prevent duplicate events when an expiry date is edited. Put this logic in a custom plugin rather than a theme, so changing themes does not remove the expiry system.

WP-Cron is triggered by page loads rather than running continuously. If nobody visits the site when an expiry is due, the task can run late; this is the problem that commonly appears on a quiet site or breaks on a Friday when no one checks the dashboard.

For important deadlines, configure your hosting provider's system cron to request wp-cron.php on a regular schedule. If you do that, WordPress recommends disabling its page-load cron trigger with DISABLE_WP_CRON to avoid running both systems unnecessarily.

Create a test post with an expiry a few minutes in the future and confirm that the chosen action happens. Test both a post and a page if you need both, then test what happens when you change the expiry date or save the content again.

If you have WP-CLI, inspect scheduled events with wp cron event list, run a due event with wp cron event run, and check the cron system with wp cron test. Also review Tools → Site Health for loopback failures, which can stop scheduled events from running.

For most sites, install PublishPress Future, activate it, and configure the expiry behaviour in its settings. Edit a post or page, set its expiration date, choose the follow-up action, and update the content. This avoids maintaining custom metadata, cron callbacks and duplicate-event checks yourself.

Use Draft as the default action until you are certain that Trash or another follow-up action is appropriate. Check one test item manually after the first scheduled expiry, especially if the site has low traffic or a caching, security or hosting setup that may interfere with WP-Cron.