Publishing & item lifecycle

Understand item status

What Published, Draft, Queued, and Archived mean
View as Markdown

Every CMS item in Wicked CMS shows a Status badge in the items table and in the item detail sheet. Status reflects where the item is in its publish lifecycle.

Status values

StatusMeaning
PublishedThe item is live on the site with no pending draft changes
Changes in DraftThe item is live, but you have unsaved or unpublished draft edits
Changes Queued to PublishLive item with draft changes queued for the next site publish
Item Queued to PublishNew or fully draft item queued for the next site publish
Queued to be ArchivedItem is queued to be archived on the next site publish
ArchivedItem is archived and not active
Not publishedItem has never been published

Publish state

Separate from status, Publish State shows:

  • Live — the current published version is active on the site
  • Draft — the item exists but is not live

An item can be Live with Changes in Draft status when you have saved edits that are not yet published.

How status changes

When you queue an item for site publish instead of publishing immediately:

  • Item Queued to Publish — a draft item waiting for the next site-wide publish
  • Changes Queued to Publish — a live item with draft changes waiting for the next site-wide publish
  • Queued to be Archived — an item scheduled to archive on the next site publish

Queued items go live (or archive) when the Webflow site itself is published.

Filter by status

Use Filter items to filter the items table by Status, Publish State, Draft, or Archive.

Next steps

Publish an item

Make changes live immediately.

Queue for site publish

Schedule changes for the next site publish.