Ephemeral posts & archives

One thing I always did in the past is manually delete posts that were meant as one-time, in the moment, type thoughts and text. That could be social posts that go to another timeline or just something you wanted to let go of.

That's something that works for me personally because I don't like holding onto the past too much (although good to be incredibly aware of it and look back on). Like keeping a hold of all items you have ever possessed in your life, never given any thought to just remove those items you no longer need. That's my internal minimalist talking, my zen of keeping things clean. Like the flow and ebb of the sea — a moment in time.

Whilst I recognise that this is an incredibly niche feature, it's something that has been on my mind for some time.

Introducing Ephemeral posts

Now each blog can be ephemeral and there is a new setting for you to explore. It's as easy as enabling it and setting a default length of time until your posts are archived.

The default archival days are 30, but feel free to change it to suit your style up to 365 days.

In the background, we run an hourly check for any posts that fit the criteria that you've set, and will automatically archive them.

It's important to note that this will never delete your posts, it will only archive them — and yes, there is an option to bring them back. In addition to this, if you want to keep a post indefinitely, you can set the "Skip Archive" option on a post by post basis.

And that's all there is to it! Posts that are archived won't show up on your blog, nor any feeds. There is also a new section in the admin area where you can see all archived posts. Which brings me to the next thing.

Quick update: I also added the option to allow visitors, that know the URL (for example from a social feed), to continue to view the post. It's optional and you can change it any time.

Introducing Archive-able posts

Yes, following up on the above, any post can be set as archived, and vice-versa. There is a dedicated section for archived posts and you can get to it from the main menu.

Archived posts are faded out on the main posts screen, they do not show on your blog and cannot be visited. You may edit the posts at any time and also un-archive them if you'd like.

And that's it. Easy.

I understand that this feature is not for all, and that's OK — I do hope that some of you find it useful. I know one person that will at least.

— Vincent