Every article is in exactly one status at a time, and that status decides whether readers can see it. You can change it from the status dropdown in the editor header or from a row's actions menu in the article list, and a version history in the editor lets you step back to how an article used to read.
The four statuses
| Status | What readers see | How an article gets here |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Nothing. Drafts exist only in the admin. | New articles start here. Unpublish, Unarchive and Restore all land here too. |
| Published | The article is live on your knowledge base. | Publish |
| Archived | Nothing. The article is kept but read-only in the admin (no Edit entry in its row menu). | Archive |
| Trashed | Nothing. The article is frozen and deleted forever after 30 days. | Move to trash |
Nothing ever goes live silently: unpublishing, unarchiving and restoring from trash all return an article to Draft, so you decide when it is published again.
Change status from the editor
- Open the article in the editor.
- Use the status dropdown in the header (it shows Draft, Published or Archived).
- Pick the new status. Publishing takes effect immediately.
If the article is already published and you have edited it, the dropdown reads Unpublished changes instead, with two options: Publish changes and Discard changes. See Edit a published article safely.
Change status from the list
You do not need to open an article to change its status.
- Go to your knowledge base's article list.
- Open the Article actions menu (the three-dot button) on the row.
- Choose the action. The menu only offers what applies: Publish for drafts, Unpublish for published articles, Unarchive for archived ones, plus Archive and Move to trash below the divider.
Archiving asks you to confirm first. Trashed rows offer only Restore and, for owners and admins, Delete forever.
To change several articles at once, select them and use the bulk bar. See Bulk actions.
Archive or trash?
Archive keeps an article indefinitely, hidden from readers, with its content, version history and stats intact. Trash is the path to permanent deletion: anything left there for 30 days is purged by a daily cleanup. Use archive for content you might bring back, and trash for content you want gone. See Trash: delete, restore & the 30-day purge.
Version history
Every time you publish, the article gets a new version and the previous one is marked superseded. While you write, the editor also records snapshots of the current version, at most one every 30 seconds of editing.
To browse the history:
- Open the article in the editor.
- Click the Version history button (the clock icon) in the header. A side panel opens.
- Each entry is labelled Version 1, Version 2 and so on, with a status chip (draft, published or superseded) and the date it was created.
- Click a version to expand it. You will see its title, when it was published, and its list of Snapshots. Each snapshot has a short description (for example "Initial draft", "+120 words", or a title change), a preview of its text, and the time it was taken. The most recent snapshot of a published version carries a Published badge.
To revert:
- Expand the version you want.
- Click the snapshot to restore (each one is titled Revert to this snapshot).
The panel closes and the snapshot's title and body replace what is in the editor. A toast confirms "Reverted to snapshot from" the snapshot's time, and the reverted content is saved as a new snapshot of its own, so a revert is itself reversible. On a published article the revert lands as unpublished changes, so readers see nothing until you click Publish changes.