How to change the modified time of a wordpress post?

4 comments

1. I used wpdb::query() to do this:

   global $wpdb;
   
   //eg. time one year ago..
   $time = time() - DAY_IN_SECONDS * 365;
   
   $mysql_time_format= "Y-m-d H:i:s";
   
   $post_modified = gmdate( $mysql_time_format, $time );
   
   $post_modified_gmt = gmdate( $mysql_time_format, ( $time + get_option( 'gmt_offset' ) * HOUR_IN_SECONDS )  );
   
   $post_id = /*the post id*/;
   
   $wpdb->query("UPDATE $wpdb->posts SET post_modified = '{$post_modified}', post_modified_gmt = '{$post_modified_gmt}'  WHERE ID = {$post_id}" );
   

   Note: You can’t use wp_update_post() if you want to explicity set the modified date(s) on the post, because it calls wp_insert_post(), which determines that the post exists and sets the post_modified and post_modified variables to the current date.

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2. Very simple in PHP, where 80 is the post number:

   // update post_modified and post_modified_gmt `datetime` on a post
   $update = array( 'ID' => 80 );
   wp_update_post( $update );
   

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3. If you want to change for set of posts, better use Query Loop to get each post id.

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4. Assuming that you have previously collected the post ID from your ajax request you can then update post_modified and post_modified_gmt using the regular wp_update_post function:

   $date = current_time('mysql');
                           
   wp_update_post(array(
                               
           'ID'                => $post_id,
           'post_modified'     => $date,
           'post_modified_gmt' => get_gmt_from_date($date),
   ));
   

   Resources

   https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/wp_update_post/

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