Summary
Auto Draft is the automatic placeholder status WordPress gives a post the instant the editor is opened, before any title or content is saved. It exists so the post gets a database ID for autosaves and media uploads. WordPress removes untouched auto-drafts on its own after seven days.
Nitin Batra is a Google certified digital marketing professional who manages WordPress publishing workflows and technical SEO audits for content sites on a daily basis.
Last updated: August 22, 2026
Auto Draft is the placeholder status WordPress assigns to a post the moment you open a new editor screen, and it is automatically deleted after seven days if nothing is written or saved.
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Key Takeaways
- – Auto Draft is the temporary WordPress post status created automatically when you open a new post or page editor screen, before any content is saved.
- – It exists so WordPress can assign a post ID immediately, which lets autosave, revisions and media attachments work while you are still typing.
- – An auto-draft is never public, never indexed by design, and does not show in the standard Posts list, unlike a manually saved Draft.
- – WordPress deletes untouched auto-drafts on a scheduled cron job, so if cron is disabled on your install these empty rows can pile up in the database.
What is the difference between Auto Draft and Draft in WordPress?
An Auto Draft is created by WordPress itself the moment the editor loads, with no input from you. A Draft is created when you click Save Draft, which means you deliberately kept the content for later. Drafts appear in the Posts list and are retained indefinitely, while auto-drafts are hidden and purged automatically.
Why does a URL show a page titled Auto Draft?
That happens when you open a permalink built on the post ID, such as /?p=95540, for a post that was never given a title or content. The ID exists in the database but the record is still in auto-draft status, so WordPress renders the default title. Publishing real content on that ID or deleting the record resolves it.
How long does WordPress keep an Auto Draft before deleting it?
The default retention period is seven days. A scheduled WP-Cron event runs the auto draft cleanup and removes any post still sitting in auto-draft status past that window. If WP-Cron is not firing, for example on a low traffic site with cron disabled, those rows stay in the wp_posts table until they are cleared manually.
Can an Auto Draft hurt SEO or get indexed by Google?
An auto-draft is not publicly accessible, so search engines cannot crawl it in the normal way. Problems only appear if something on the site links to the raw post ID URL or if a plugin exposes the record. Keep internal links pointing at published permalinks and clear out unused post IDs during a site audit.
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