I dragged a handful of posts into the order I wanted, opened the blog, and they were still newest first. That is the normal result. Reorder Posts writes the order down. It does not change the blog until a query asks for it. This walkthrough is only the save. When you want the blog to follow, go to Show the saved order on the front end.
What you need
- Reorder Posts active
- A few published posts. Drafts, pending posts, and scheduled posts do not appear on the reorder screen
- An account that can edit pages. Administrators and Editors can. Authors cannot, even though they can edit posts. See Roles and capabilities
Posts and pages are already turned on. You do not need the settings screen for this first pass.
Open the reorder screen
- In wp-admin, open Posts
- Click Reorder
- You should see the published posts, top to bottom
There is no Save button. The handle at the left of each title is what you drag. The title itself stays selectable, so you can still copy it.
Drag them into order
- Grab the dotted handle
- Drop the post where you want it
- Wait for the row to settle. The plugin saves that move on its own, then renumbers the list
The top of the list is the first item. That position is stored as WordPress menu order, the same number you would type into a page’s Order field. Posts have that field too. Most people never see it, because the posts list is sorted by date.
Reload the screen. The order you dragged should still be there. If a post vanished, it is probably not published.
Check the blog, and expect the old order
Open the posts page on the front of the site. It should still be newest first. The reorder screen and the public blog are two different queries. The screen asks for menu order. The blog asks for date. The longer version of that split is Why the admin order and the public order can differ.
When you are ready for the public site to follow the drag, use Show the saved order on the front end. If the list is long enough to paginate, use Reorder a long list before you fight the page breaks.