Schedule Terms

Description

Schedule Terms lets you reserve a date and time for a category, tag, or any other taxonomy term to be attached to or detached from a post, instead of editing the post manually when the time comes.

It’s useful for things like:

• Featuring a post in a “Sale” or “Campaign” category only during a specific period, and removing it automatically afterwards.
• Adding a “New” tag to a post for a limited time after publishing.
• Hiding a post from a “Featured” listing taxonomy once a promotion ends.

Once scheduling is enabled for a taxonomy, a “Schedule Terms” panel appears in the post editor for every term in that taxonomy, with separate “Attach” and “Detach” date/time fields. WordPress’ own cron system checks the schedule and updates the post’s terms automatically when the time arrives, so there’s nothing else to do once a schedule is set.

Usage

1. Go to the category, tag, or custom taxonomy management screen.
2. Check the “Enable scheduling” checkbox when adding or editing a term (or via Quick Edit) to turn scheduling on for that term.
3. Open a post in the block editor and find the “Schedule Terms” panel in the document sidebar.
4. Set the “Attach” date/time to have the term automatically added to the post at that time, and/or the “Detach” date/time to have it automatically removed.
5. Save or update the post. The term will be attached/detached automatically once the scheduled time passes.

FAQ

Does the term get attached/detached even if I don’t edit the post again?

Yes. Scheduling is handled by WordPress cron, so the post doesn’t need to be opened or saved again after the schedule is set.

What happens if I leave both the “Attach” and “Detach” fields empty?

Nothing is scheduled for that term on that post; the term is only added or removed when you do so manually, as usual.

Can I use this with a custom taxonomy?

Yes, scheduling can be enabled for any taxonomy that is shown in the admin UI (show_ui is true), not just categories and tags.

Credits

• WP Term Meta UI