I used Automated Translation to translate a bunch of posts from English into three other languages. I didn't know about the "Copy publishing date to translations" option, which was turned off when I did the translation. Now, all my translated posts share the same February 2026 publish date. Can I restore the original publication dates to all my blog posts by
--turning on Copy publishing date to translations
--run the automatic translation again just for posts?
If this would fix my problem, then how do I run automatic translation again just for posts?
Thanks for contacting WPML Support. I’m Prosenjit from the WPML Development Team, and I’ll be happy to assist you.
First of all, I’m sorry for the delayed reply. The weekend and my day off happened back-to-back, which caused the delay.
I completely understand the situation. Now that you have enabled the option to copy the publish date to translations, you do not need to automatically translate the items again.
You can simply follow the steps below, and the publish date from the original post will be copied to the translated posts:
- In the default language, go to the Posts section
- Select the posts whose translations currently have the incorrect publish date
- From the "Bulk Actions" dropdown at the top, choose "Bulk Edit", then click 'Apply'
- A bulk edit panel will appear
- Without changing anything, simply click the 'Update' button
This will trigger an update on the original posts, and WPML should then sync the publish date to the translations as well.
As a result, both the original post and its translations should have the same publish date.
Please give it a try and let me know how it goes. If you need any help with the steps above or would like me to clarify anything, I’ll be happy to assist.
This worked! Thanks for easy fix to my issue. A quick question if you have a moment: does this method of forcing updates work for other content types or other situations, or is this specific to blogs?
