If you’ve ever needed to update your Webflow site but hesitated because of other unpublished changes in progress, I feel your pain. Or even worse—you published the site and didn’t realize that unfinished changes were also published. Anyone who’s managed a website has been there, no shame! But the good news is that Webflow has a great solution for this issue: you can publish individual CMS items without affecting the rest of your site. This feature is particularly handy when you want to add or edit a specific CMS item without pushing live any ongoing work or changes that are still in progress.

Why This Matters

Imagine you’re adding a blog post, editing a landing page, or publishing a client testimonial. There might be other updates or redesigns in the works that aren’t ready to be shown to the public yet. By using the option to publish individual CMS items, you can ensure that only the content you want to go live is published, leaving all other changes untouched. 🤯

How to Publish Individual CMS Items Using the Webflow Editor

The Webflow Editor is a powerful tool that many of our clients utilize for making on-demand site updates. It has a lot of helpful features for managing your website’s content, which we wrote all about here. But this time we’re highlighting this specific feature that really stands out. Here’s how you do it:

1. Log in to your Webflow site and enter the Editor mode. (If you need help with this, we wrote a step-by-step guide here.)
2. Navigate to the CMS collection containing the item you wish to publish.
3. Find or create the item you want to publish and click on it to open its detail view.
4. Click the “Publish” button at the top right corner of the item’s detail view—making sure all desired changes are complete, of course. This will only publish the selected item, leaving all other site changes unpublished.

How to Publish Individual CMS Items in the Designer View

If you’re working from the more robust Designer interface, or just want to see how we would work under the hood of your website, here’s how to accomplish the same task:

1. Enter the Designer view and open the “CMS Collections” panel.
2. Select the relevant collection and locate the specific item.
3. Click the item to edit and make your updates.
4. Once done, click the “Publish” button within the item’s panel or from the “Save” options dropdown.

Benefits of Using This Method

• Prevents unwanted changes: Keeps work-in-progress or experimental updates from going live prematurely.
• Maintains site stability: Ensures only the necessary updates are visible to your users.
• Simplifies content management: Provides peace of mind knowing you can safely manage your content with full control.

Mastering this feature will help you keep your site content updated and your website looking professional. It’s an essential skill for anyone maintaining a dynamic Webflow site