Publish your site changes to see them live on the web — instantly!
Whether you’re in your site, the Editor, or Site settings, you can publish your site to push changes to the web instantly, without the hassle of file and server management or version overrides. Webflow provides additional controls to make publishing seamless and straightforward — you can publish to a dedicated staging environment preview your work before making it live, publish (and unpublish) Collection items individually and separately from the rest of your site so you don’t affect any design works-in-progress, and set appropriate publishing roles and permissions for your team members to control who can and cannot publish your site or CMS items.
How to publish your site
You can publish site changes and updates from Site actions, Editor, or Site settings.
Publishing from Site actions or Site settings
Note
Only team members with a site manager role or team members who have the Can publish toggle turned on have publishing permissions. The publish modal is disabled for team members with the limited designer and designer (needs approval) roles and team members who have the Can publish toggle turned off.
By default, your site comes with a subdomain (e.g., yoursite.webflow.io) that you can use as a development or staging environment. For sites with Site plans, you can also add a custom domain (e.g., yourdomain.com) to use as a production or live environment – this means that your site is visible and public on the web. The publish modal menu in Site actions and Site settings lets you publish to both of these domains (i.e., the subdomain and the custom domain), so be sure to carefully select your desired publish destination.
To publish from Site actions in your site or from Site settings:
- Click Publish
-
Check the domain(s) you want to publish to
- Click Publish to selected domains
Pro tip
You can quickly publish changes in your site with keyboard shortcuts. Press Shift + P to open the publish menu, double-check which domains are selected, and press Shift + Enter to publish to all selected domains.
Publishing from the Editor
Note
Only team members with a site manager role or team members who have the Can publish toggle turned on have publishing permissions for site-wide changes (including static pages and Collection items). Teammates working in the Editor with the Can publish toggle turned off can only publish single Collection items through single-item publishing and scheduling.
Important
When you publish from the Editor, your site will publish to both the webflow.io staging subdomain and any custom domain(s) you’ve added to your site. To publish changes only to your staging domain, publish from Site actions in your site or from Site settings.
The Editor toolbar indicates the total number of unpublished changes that are staged to be published. These staged changes include work by all teammates, not just the teammate who clicks Publish. Publishing changes made in the Editor also publishes any changes made in your site, so make sure you’re aware of all changes before publishing.
To publish your entire site from the Editor:
- Click Publish to preview a summary of your changes
- Click Publish changes to publish all changes and updates
Pro tip
Communication is key! Because a collaborator working in your site can inadvertently publish Editor works-in-progress (and vice versa), be sure that all of your collaborators communicate with each other about upcoming publish events.
How to save and publish individual Collection items
When you create a new Collection item or edit an existing Collection item, you can choose from various saving and publishing options. Learn more about saving and publishing Collection items.
How to unpublish your site
You can unpublish your site from any or all of your domains from Site actions in your site or from Site settings. Unpublishing works immediately and you can always republish your site by selecting the domain(s) and publishing again.
To quickly unpublish your site from all domains and subdomains, click the Unpublish icon in your Site settings.
To unpublish your site from a single domain:
- Open your site or go to Site settings
- Click Publish
- Click Unpublish next to the domain you want to unpublish your site from
How to use the Webflow staging subdomain for testing and feedback
To test custom code or get feedback and approval on your site design, you can publish your site to the Webflow staging subdomain (e.g., yoursite.webflow.io) – without also pushing those changes out to your custom domain.
To publish to the staging subdomain without publishing to your custom domain:
- Open your site or go to Site settings
- Click Publish
- Check the Webflow staging subdomain (e.g.,
yoursite.webflow.io)
- Uncheck your custom domain
- Click Publish to select domains
Important
When you publish from the Editor, your site will publish to both the webflow.io staging subdomain and any custom domain(s) you’ve added to your site. To publish changes only to your staging domain, publish from Site actions in your site or from Site settings.
You can edit your subdomain in the webflow.io domain field under Site settings > Publishing tab > Staging.
Note
If you change your site’s subdomain, both your staging domain (e.g., yoursite.webflow.io) and your site’s read-only link will be replaced instantly. Any read-only links you’ve previously shared will no longer function.
Advanced publishing options
Advanced publishing options are located in Site settings > Publishing tab > Advanced publishing options. These allow you to minify HTML, CSS, and/or JS and choose to use secure frame headers to restrict where your site can be embedded.