How to edit CMS items (blog posts, etc.)

Step-by-step instructions for editing existing CMS items in Webflow — such as blog posts, team members, or case studies.

Whether you need to fix a typo in a blog post, update a team member's title, or change a case study description — this guide walks you through editing existing CMS items in Webflow.

Quick summary

Open your site in Webflow, click the CMS tab, find the Collection you need, click the item you want to edit, and make your changes. Webflow saves them automatically as a draft. Changes to a published item don't go live until you publish the item (Publish now) or queue it and publish the whole site.

What you'll need

Your site open in Webflow
The name of the item you want to edit (e.g., the blog post title)

How to edit a CMS item

Open your site in Webflow. Log in to webflow.com, hover over your site on the Dashboard, and click Open in Webflow. Or add ?update to the end of any page address on your live site.

Open the CMS panel. Click the CMS tab in the top bar.

Select the Collection. Click the Collection that contains the item you want to edit (e.g., "Blog Posts," "Team Members").

Find and click the item. Up to 100 items show at a time, with next and previous buttons for the rest. Use Search, or sort and filter the list, to find it faster.

Edit the fields. The item opens with all its fields. Click into any field to edit it. This might include Title, Body, Featured Image, Published Date, etc.

Let Webflow save it. You don't need to save by hand: your changes are saved automatically as a draft. They aren't live yet.

Publish your changes. Click Publish now at the top of the item to put the changes live straight away. Or choose Queue for next site publish, and the changes go live the next time the whole site is published. Publish now isn't available on the Starter or Basic plans.

Save vs Publish

Webflow saves your edits automatically, but saved changes to a published item stay in draft until you publish them. Publishing the whole site does not publish drafts: only items you publish, or queue for the next site publish, go live. You can still edit several items and queue them all, then publish the site once to update everything together.

Editing the body text of a blog post

If your blog post has a rich text body field, editing it works like editing any rich text area:

Click into the body field
Edit text directly, or select text and apply formatting (like bold, italics or a link)
Add new paragraphs by pressing Enter
Paste text as plain text to strip outside formatting: Command + Option + Shift + V (Mac) or Control + Shift + V (Windows). This also removes bold, italics and links, so add those back afterwards.

See How to edit text for more on formatting best practices.

Editing on the live page vs in the CMS panel

Some CMS content can also be edited on the page itself: open the Collection page from the Pages panel, pick the item from the dropdown at the top, then click the content you want to change. Both methods edit the same underlying data.

When you edit on the page, only change content that belongs to the item (Webflow outlines it in purple). If you change the page's fixed content instead, the change appears on every item's page.

Editing through the CMS panel is often easier for long-form content like blog posts, because you have more space to work with.

Changing a CMS item's status (Draft / Published)

Each item has publishing options at the top:

Publish now — puts the item (or your changes) live straight away
Queue for next site publish — goes live the next time the whole site is published
Unpublish — takes a published item off the live site straight away and sets it back to Draft
Schedule to publish later — publishes a new item at a date and time you choose (only for items that have never been published, and not on the Starter or Basic plans)
Archive — removes a live item from the site at the next full-site publish, but keeps it in the CMS so you can unarchive it later

Like scheduling, Publish now and Unpublish aren't available on the Starter or Basic plans.

A new item that has only been saved as a Draft doesn't appear on the live site.

Published date vs live status

Some CMS items have a "Published Date" field (often used for blog posts to show the article date). This is separate from whether the item is in "Draft" or "Published" state. You can set a past date on a published item or a future date — neither automatically controls when the item goes live. You control live status with the publishing options above.

Common questions

I saved my changes but they aren't showing on the live site.

Changes save automatically as a draft. You still need to publish them: click Publish now on the item, or queue the item and publish the whole site. If you've published and still don't see the change, try clearing your browser cache.

I can't find the item I want to edit.

Try searching, sorting or filtering the item list. The status filter includes archived items. If the item exists on the live site but you can't find it in the CMS panel, it may be in a different Collection than you expect. Check all your Collections.

A field I want to edit isn't showing up.

Fields in the CMS are configured by Chykalophia. If you need a field that doesn't exist (e.g., a "Video URL" field), contact us and we'll add it.

I deleted an item by mistake. Can I get it back?

Content editors can't restore backups, so contact Chykalophia as soon as possible. A site manager may be able to get it back by restoring a site backup, but that rolls back the whole site. A deleted item stays on the live site until the next full-site publish. If you might need an item again, archive it instead of deleting it.

Need a hand?

If you're stuck, email support@chykalophia.com and we'll help. Include your website address and a screenshot if you can.