Recently, a question was asked by a WordPress beginner, on our blog. It took a little digging, but we've found the answer. 

One of our users was curious to know if it's possible to schedule a sticky post to expire. You can find out more about <a href="https://itxdesign.com/creating-sticky-posts-in-wordpress/">sticky posts and view the comments, here</a>. 

<h2>Why Would You Want a Sticky Post to Expire?</h2>

The most popular reason to use a sticky post and let it expire involves some type of sale or discount. Maybe you run a business selling goods or services to your visitors. If you wanted to offer a discount for the holiday season or for a limited time, you can use a sticky post to announce the sale and set it to expire once the sale is over.

<h2>Using a Plugin to Allow a Sticky Post to Expire</h2>

There's a WordPress plugin that makes it easy to set an expiration date for your sticky post. The plugin is called, <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/content-scheduler/">Content Scheduler</a> and you can download it <a href="http://wordpress.org/plugins/content-scheduler/">here</a>. 

Once you've downloaded, installed and activated this plugin, you will be able to set the expiration date for your sticky post. However, you will need to adjust a few settings first. 

Access the plugin by going to <strong>Settings &gt;&gt; Content Scheduler</strong> within your WordPress dashboard. Here, you will find all the settings for the plugin.

The first setting to adjust is the "Expiration Status" setting. This gives you three options and you will need to choose the one that fits best for your needs.

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/ExpriationStatus.png" alt="Expriation Status" width="680" height="106" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6769" />

If you don't want to delete the post completely, but you'd like the sticky part of it to expire, the "Apply Changes" is the right option. However, if you'd like the post to be completely deleted, choose the "Delete" option.

The next change to make is to the "Change Status To" section. You have four options here.

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/ChangeStatusTo.png" alt="Change Status To" width="528" height="100" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6770" />
The "No Change" option fits well if you still want the post to remain published on your blog. The other three options will all take the post off your site in a different way. 

When dealing with a sticky post in WordPress, the settings option for this plugin called "Change Stickiness to" is the most important setting to change. You will need to select the "Unstick" option or when the post expires, it will remain as a sticky post.

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/ChangeStickinessTo.png" alt="Change Stickiness To" width="516" height="69" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6771" />

You can also change a few of the other options, such as changing the category of the post upon expiration. Along with the settings that affect the post directly, you can adjust the notification settings of the plugin, as well.

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/NotificationSettings.png" alt="Notification Settings" width="937" height="282" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6772" />

These settings allow you to be notified whenever the post reaches its expiration. You can even notify the author of the post, if you use multiple authors for your blog.

Once you've made the necessary changes, make sure you click the "save changes" button. Now you're ready to set an expiration date and time for your sticky post. 

<h2>Setting the Expiration for Your Sticky Post</h2>

This part of the process is very simple. Just find your sticky post or create it and scroll down to the section called "Content Scheduler."

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/ContentSchedulerInPost.png" alt="Content Scheduler In Post" width="867" height="162" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6773" />

All you have to do is enable this option and set a date and time for expiration. Once you publish the post, it will be set to expire and all the options you set in the previous steps will apply to the post.

<h2>Manually Expiring a Sticky Post in WordPress</h2>

If you have trust issues or you prefer not to use a plugin, the only real way to make a sticky post expire is to do it manually. You will have to add the date and time to your personal schedule or calendar. If you use Google Calendar, you can set a notification to send you an email or text message for the time and date you want to make your sticky post expired.

When the time comes, you will need to log into your WordPress dashboard, find the sticky post and change the status. This is easily done from the post edit screen with the "Visibility" option. Just click the "Edit" link and change the checked box for "Stick this post to the front page" to an unchecked box. 

<img src="https://itxdesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/UnstickPostManually.png" alt="Unstick Post Manually" width="298" height="284" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-6774" />

Any other changes you want to make, such as the status of the post, the privacy or the category, you will have to make manually, as well. Once you've made all necessary changes, just click "update" and you're all set.

Now you have two different ways to make a sticky post expire. Whether you want to give the plugin a try or you prefer to handle this task manually, you can make your sticky post expire, change the category for it, change its status and make other changes to it, when you're done using it.

