Update status of all posts in a category

Question

For one of my project I just want to change the post status of all the posts inside a specific category from publish to pending.

It is possible to change status of multiple posts at once? I want to use this functionality in a custom theme I am developing.

thanks

Answer 1

I am sure there's an easier way to accomplish this, but this how I would've done.

1. Query all posts with category X and status X

2. Update query results with status Y.

   $target_category = 'news';
   $change_status_from = 'draft';
   $change_status_to = 'publish';
   $update_query = new WP_Query(array('post_status'=>$change_status_from, 'category_name'=>$target_category, 'posts_per_page'=>-1));
   
   if($update_query->have_posts()){
   
       while($update_query->have_posts()){
   
           $update_query->the_post();
           wp_update_post(array('ID'=>$post->ID, 'post_status'=>$change_status_to));
   
       }
   
   }
   

You can place this code inside a page template, or in functions.php. It's likely that you only need to run it every now and then. So I would create a template for it. Add it to the template and then assign that template to a specific page that's maybe marked as private or draft.

Answer 2

Or you can do this in MySQL using a query such as:

UPDATE tb_posts 
SET post_status = 'pending' 
WHERE ID IN ( 
    SELECT object_id FROM `tb_term_relationships` 
    WHERE term_taxonomy_id = {your_cat_id} 
)

If you hover over a category on the category page, you can see its ID in the URL