She Knows SEO contains affiliate links and is a member of the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you make a purchase using one of these Amazon links, we may receive compensation at no extra cost to you. See our Disclosure Policy for more information.

How to Export A List of All Blog Posts from WordPress Without a Plugin

ByNina Clapperton Updated on

Have you ever had to list out your blog posts? Going through every post one by one SUCKS.

I made the mistake of doing it manually for years before I learned these 2 easy tricks to export all of my blog posts instantly. It helps me keep my tracking sheets up to date, get a list of posts and URLs for VAs or writers, and double check all of my URLs quickly.

There are tons of plugins out there that can do this, but most are paid beyond a certain number of blog posts or produce a dizzying array of data like Screaming Frog.

These two methods are much more user friendly, even if you aren’t great with tech.

Option 1: Blog Post Titles and URLs

Option 1 is my preferred method for exporting WordPress blog posts easily. It offers more data than option 2, which gives you the ability to make more custom reports.

Let’s go through the steps:

  1. Log into your WordPress site
  2. Open the Dashboard and go to “Tools”. Hover over it and it will bring up “Export”.
  3. Select “Posts” from the list. If you have over 200 posts, you’ll need to filter by category or date as it maxes out at 200 per export. It’s a good idea to group content by category, so that’s my preferred solution.
  4. Click the “Download Export File”
  5. This downloads an XML. You will need to open this with a spreadsheet app like Excel. To do this, right click on the file in your Downloads folder. Select “Open With” and select Excel or a similar spreadsheet app. Alternatively, find an online converted and convert it to CSV online. Then open with a spreadsheet app. If you open it in text, it’s gibberish.
  6. The primary columns you need are V and X for the post Titles and URLs. But look through the other columns for data like date and author. Delete extra columns.
  7. The XML exports all versions of your files, so there may be 3 version of the same post because there are revisions to it. So “Remove Duplicates” to get rid of the extra rows.
  8. Now you have a list of all your blog post titles and URLs!
WordPress dashboard with the Tools -> Export window open. The word "Posts" is selected from the multiple choice options. There are entry fields that are empty where a user can input dates, categories, authors, and status to filter which posts are exported.
Step 2 and 3

Watch a Tutorial Here

Option 2: URLs Only

If you can’t work with XML files or you aren’t using WordPress, another option is to use your sitemap to get all of your blog’s URLs at a glance.

This will only pick up the URLs so you won’t have the blog post titles or any other data from the previous option. However, if you’ve included images in your sitemap, it will show the number of images per post which can be kind of interesting.

Let’s go through the steps:

  1. Open Google Search Console
  2. On the sidebar, scroll to “Indexing” -> “Sitemaps” (it should be the 3rd option beneath Indexing)
  3. Copy the URL of your sitemap (typically /sitemap_index.xml or /sitemap.xml)
  4. Go to “[yourdomain].com/[sitemapinfo]”
  5. Click on the “post” sitemap. It usually is called “post-sitemap.xml”
  6. Copy the table and paste into a spreadsheet. Remove images + last modified columns if you don’t need them.
  7. Now you have a list of all your URLs!
Google Search Console sidebar showing the "Indexing" section with the word "Sitemap" highlighted.
Step 2
She Knows SEO's sitemap with the URLs blurred out showing 5 sub sitemaps and modified dates beside them. The blurred text are clickable links for different sitemap elements.
Step 4
She Knows SEO's post sitemap showing a list of URLs of specific posts and pages, with a column for number of images and a column for date modified.
Step 5

Some sitemaps cap out at 200 posts as well. If this is the case, you’ll have two sitemaps called “post” in your sitemap. You’ll want to copy the URLs from them both.

Why Should You Export a List of Your Blog Posts?

Now that you have this amazing data, you need to know what to do with it.

There are many uses for a list of your blog post URLs and/or titles.

Here are a few:

  1. Post tracking spreadsheet that organizes updates, what posts have which affiliate links, etc. I use mine to organize my content audits and posting workflows.
  2. Pinterest pin planner
  3. Have links on hand for social, email or Pinterest promos for a VA or other contractor
  4. Saves time searching for URLs for your blog for promotions or internal links
  5. Easy to provide to ChatGPT for internal link suggestions, silo grouping, or topical cluster creation
  6. Make a DIY rank tracker in Google Sheets
  7. Find URLs that need updating for best SEO practices
  8. Have a list of URLs to do mass redirects when changing URL structure or migrating content to other site(s)
  9. Make a master list of posts that need/have backlinks
  10. Anything where you need at-a-glance info
seo spreadsheets for bloggers ad

Conclusion

Since the point of the information is to make it easy to access and simplify your life, I love these two simple methods for exporting these lists of blog posts without a hassle.

They don’t require any paid tools or plugins that could slow down your site – or cause a security issue.

Now that you know how to export these links, I recommend doing so and putting them in an organizational spreadsheet. I have a Master List for each of my blogs that helps me keep track of when content was last updated, if it has pin images or social share images, which affiliate links are in it, and if I’ve included email or product opt ins.

It makes it so easy to audit content later on, and to change out affiliate links if a program closes or a product goes out of stock.

You can get my SEO Spreadsheets for Bloggers for just $9. You’ll get 12 spreadsheets including my Master Post template.

Read More WordPress Blogging Tips

Like this post? Share it with others!

Nina Clapperton is the founder of She Knows SEO.

She started blogging in 2018 and spent years doing everything “right” while earning $0. Then she stopped guessing and learned how search actually works. She rebuilt her travel site around audience intent and structure and grew to 50,000 sessions in 6 months. Within a year, the blog was bringing in $30,000 months and later crossed 243,000 pageviews.

She took the same audience first SEO approach and built her education business into multiple $100,000 months.

Now Nina teaches bloggers and online business owners how to build search powered businesses grounded in strong positioning, clear structure, and monetisation that actually supports their audience. She covers traditional SEO and AI driven search without the tech bro noise, and she’s known for explaining complex strategy with analogies you won’t forget.

Want to organize your SEO strategy?

Get My SEO Spreadsheets

10 Spreadsheets for Bloggers

OOO, TELL ME MORE 👀
SEO Spreadsheets for Bloggers - mock up on a laptop of the spreadsheets with a button saying "Only $9!" on the corner.