Page availability: public, draft, private, and disabled

Documentation / Pages and navigation

The words public, draft, and private appear in different contexts. They are not four interchangeable choices in the standard page-access selector.

Current page controls

Under Access > Availability, the current page settings offer Public, Direct link only, Password protected, and Disabled. Choose the option that matches the intended visitor experience, then save and verify it at the page's normal address.

Public makes the page eligible for public navigation and listings. It does not force the page into a tree where it has no entry. The separate Show in navigation choice and date filtering can also affect discovery.

Direct link only removes normal public discovery without making knowledge of the URL an access credential. Password protected uses a page password. Disabled returns a not-found response to unauthenticated production visitors, while administrators and local development can still access the page for editing.

Drafts and private websites

An editor draft is a saved content state awaiting publication. It is separate from the page's availability. A page can already have a live version while newer edits exist in a draft.

Website-level private access is also separate. Do not infer a per-page private or administrator-only gate from the word private in a collection record or older content format. The standard page selector does not expose a private option.

A future Date can hide a page from navigation and listings until that day, but direct links still work. It is not a security setting or a timed publication guarantee.

Test access signed out, including the direct URL. See Saving, recovery, and troubleshooting for drafts and Site administration and domains for site privacy.