Patreon WordPress post sync guide

Upcoming beta of Patreon WordPress post sync feature allows you to sync your posts from Patreon to your WP site.

Using this feature, you can post a post at Patreon and it will be automatically synced to your WP site, complete with formatting, images and embeds. Images at Patreon will be automatically inserted to your Media library and then properly inserted to the post. Edited posts will be updated as well, and deleted posts will be removed.

Post sync wizard, as well as options in Patreon Settings menu allow you to customize the behavior of post sync feature.

You can set up post syncing by launching the post sync wizard from admin menu as seen below…

…or directly through the options in Patreon Settings.

When you set post sync on for the first time, your site will start importing your existing Patreon posts into your WP installation automatically. Every 5 minutes, 10 posts will be imported, until all existing posts are synced. You can choose the post type and category to import the posts to. You can also set the author to be used as the author of imported posts.

When importing existing posts, the plugin checks if there is a matching imported post in WP, and updates it if it exists.

If a post does not exist, then the plugin will search for the exact post title and update that post from Patreon post.

If you have existing, double posts which exist at both your WP site and Patreon, and you want to keep the existing WP posts as they are (if you have more formatting in your WP post etc), you should turn off the update option. If that’s not the case, its always a good idea to keep update option on.

If you need to start an import in future, you can start it from the ‘Start an import’ button button in Patreon Settings menu. It will start a full post import/sync which will import/update all your existing posts again. (it will not delete deleted posts). Normally you dont need to do this once you set up post syncing and first post import completes.

You can do a post import even if you dont turn post sync on. Just visit your Patreon settings menu, and click ‘Start an import’. The plugin will import all your posts from Patreon but will not be continually syncing the posts from Patreon. This way, you can manually import/update your posts whenever you want. However just turning post sync on is the recommended and easy way.

Post sync works automatic and is hands-off - you can just post at Patreon and they will appear at your WP site!

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Hi!

By the way the text is written I understand that this feature is available right now. Is that so? I installed and checked in WP plugin but still looks like the old plugin. Do you ave a release date? :slight_smile:

HI Catherine!

This feature will go out in 1.5.6, which is the next release, on monday. But you can start using it by following the instructions in the beta thread and downloading the latest package. Here is the latest state of this package:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9g9w6rc6mgyfe00/patreon-connect-sync-posts-beta-2.zip?dl=0

Adds Link post type support.

The instructions are in beta thread:

Got it. Amazing job all this is a game changer for a lot of creator! Thanks!

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Great to hear you liked it. If you have any feedback or feature requests about it, youre welcome. Also let us know if you encounter any issues.

Now released at github. Downloadable package here.

1.5.6 and it fixes a minor issue with patron only status of updated posts, also adds support for pay per post type patron only posts.

It will be released at WP repo on monday. You can either install the above release per beta instructions or just wait until monday to just update from your wp plugin admin.

1.5.6 live at WP repo now. You can just update from your plugin admin.

Those who downloaded the beta or used the release at github, you can delete your plugin and reinstall it via WP plugin manager again to get the latest state of code. There are some minor fixes in the last state of the release. Github release is also updated to reflect that.

This is such a nice feature… Just downloaded and will give it a go. Really, REALLY appreciate the work the team is doing over there. Great stuff and thank you all!

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Thanks! If you have any feedback or issues, make sure to let us know.

I cannot get it to sync. I have it installed (about 2 hours ago), but I still don’t see the posts showing up on my website. I have tried with using text, pictures, and audio posts onto my patreon, but none of them will show up on the blog part of the website. I have tried to “reconnect” the plugin to the patreon site just incase the keys were wrong or needed to be refreshed.

Which post type and category did you choose to sync your posts to?

When you go to ‘Patreon Settings’, do you see a green message saying that post import is in progress? Or a gray one that says no post import ongoing?

I have it selected on “Post” and the category is “Uncategorized” so it would show up in my blog post stream. Yes, it says there is “ongoing post import”.

When was the first time you installed your plugin? You may still be running a v1 installation.

Okay, just to be clear, are you refering to the plugin being version 1 or are you talking about my patreon keys? My patreon keys were on API v2.

I see. Can you disconnect and reconnect your site from the api. This should force the plugin to update any flags which it may have set for api v1/v2 switching.

Okay, I think I got it working (for now?)… What I did was delete the v2 patreon keys and created new ones. I got the two sites (Patreon and www.thebigjohnshow.com) connected. Afterwards, I clicked on “Start an import” and my site started to crash, then work again. I’m guessing it started a mass download because I started seeing post suddenly appear from my patreon. It took a while for the pictures to return on my website, but it looks to have worked right now. Very interesting to see this work, if it is doing what it’s supposed to. It scared me when it first started downloading all the posts and I thought my website crashed. All seems good now.

Thank you for your help and patience with this. I have one more site to work this out on, but I think I can do it. If not, I will be back for more! LOL Thank you again!

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Great to hear you got it to work. Good luck with the other site.

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Is it possible to limit the import to only cover posts with certain tags?

That would really help minimize the number of posts and pictures to be removed after the import. Thank you in advance for your reaction.

Currently not, but tag support will be added in future. (Then you will be able to auto update your existing posts with new tags as well). A filter based on tags may be possible.

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Wonderful, thank you! :smiley:

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