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Your content editors can preview any content change including creating, deleting, editing, and reordering content.

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Understanding drafts

In ButterCMS, drafts serve multiple purposes:
ScenarioHow drafts work
New contentAll new content starts as a draft until published
Editing published contentChanges are saved as a draft version without affecting live content
Team reviewAuthors create drafts that Publishers/Admins review before publishing
Staging workflowDrafts can be previewed on staging sites using the draft API

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Typical draft workflow

  1. v1 Created (Draft) → Author creates initial content
  2. v1 Published → Content goes live
  3. v2 Created (Draft) → Author starts making updates
  4. v2 in Review → Team reviews changes while v1 remains live
  5. v2 Published → Updated content goes live, v1 becomes Locked
This workflow ensures your live content remains stable while you iterate on new versions.

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Saving content as draft

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For Pages

  1. Create or edit your Page content
  2. Click the Save Draft button (instead of Publish)
  3. Your content is saved but not live on your website
  4. The page status shows a yellow date indicator indicating draft status

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For Blog Posts

  1. Create or edit your Blog Post
  2. Click Save Draft to save without publishing
  3. The post remains in draft status until you click Publish

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For Collections

  1. Navigate to your Collection
  2. Create a new item or edit an existing one
  3. Click Save Draft to save changes without publishing
ButterCMS does not have an auto-save feature. Remember to save your work frequently by clicking “Save Draft”.

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Creating drafts items for existing Collections

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Step 1: Create a new draft item

To create a draft for an existing Collection:
  1. Go to Collections
  2. Click the New Item button
  3. Click on the name of the collection you want to add a new item to
Create Collection Draft

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Step 2: Save as draft

Fill in the details and click Save Draft: Save Collection Draft

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Step 3: View draft items

Go back to your Collection and click on Draft to view all items saved as drafts. View Collection Drafts

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Draft versions over published content

When you edit content that’s already published:
  1. An Author (or higher permission) edits the Published content
  2. The changes are saved as a Draft version
  3. This puts the content into “Published with Draft” status
  4. The live content remains unchanged until the draft is published
  5. A Publisher or Admin can review and publish the draft changes
Published with Draft Status
You can compare the draft version with the existing published version side by side using two browser tabs. You can also view the revision history to see previous versions.

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Staging site integration

Draft Mode can be used to set up a staging website for previewing content before it goes live:
  1. Edit items in your Collections and save changes as Draft
  2. Go to your staging site (e.g., https://staging.yoursite.com)
  3. Navigate to the specific page you’re editing to see what the changes look like
  4. Your team can verify the changes look good on the staging site
  5. Once approved, publish the content to make it live
Developer Note: For staging preview to work, your developer needs to configure the staging site to use preview=1 (or test=1 for Collections) when calling the ButterCMS API.

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Publishing drafts

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Single item

To publish a single draft item, click on the Publish button: Publish Single Draft

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Multiple items

You can also publish multiple collection items at once from the Collections dashboard:
  1. Select the items you want to publish using checkboxes
  2. Use the bulk action to publish all selected items
Bulk Publish Drafts

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Deleting drafts

If you’ve created a new draft of published content, and you want to delete those changes, just click on Delete draft, and those changes will be discarded. Delete Page Draft

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Accessing drafts via API

For developers building preview functionality, draft content can be accessed using the preview parameter: 
// Fetch draft/preview content
const butter = require('buttercms')('your-api-key');

// For Pages - use preview=1
const page = await butter.page.retrieve('*', 'my-page', {
  preview: 1
});

// For Collections - use preview=1
const collection = await butter.content.retrieve(['my_collection'], {
  preview: 1
});
Content TypeParameterDescription
Pagespreview=1Returns draft version if available, published if not
Blog Postspreview=1Returns draft/unpublished posts
Collectionspreview=1Returns draft version if available, published if not

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Draft workflow best practices

Even if you have publishing permissions, save major changes as drafts first. This gives you a chance to preview and verify before going live.
Set up a workflow where Authors create drafts and Publishers review before publishing. This reduces errors and maintains content quality.
Work with your development team to set up a staging site that shows draft content. This allows a full preview of changes in context.
Since there’s no auto-save, make it a habit to save drafts frequently, especially when making extensive changes.