# Sync status and conflicts

Sync status tells you how a document compares with the WordPress post it is linked to. It appears in two places: the **WP** tab in the document editor, and a pill next to the document’s title in the project’s document list. This page lists every state, what causes it and what clears it.

## Where sync status appears

- **The WP tab.** A colored dot and a label at the top of the tab, with a line underneath giving relative times: “Edited in WordPress *time* · you synced *time*“, “Synced *time*” or “Not synced yet”. The buttons under it depend on the state: **Pull** and **Push** for a linked document, or a first-publish button for one that is not on WordPress yet.
- **The document list.** A pill next to the title, shown only for the two states that need attention: **Unpushed** and **WordPress update**. A linked document that is up to date shows no pill. When the project has linked documents, the **Filter** menu has a **WordPress sync** section with **Unpushed**, **WordPress update** and **In sync**.

![Close-up of the WP tab: the colored status dot, label, relative-time note, and the Pull and Push buttons](https://workover.io/api/proxy-image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwp.wpdocsync.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2026%2F09%2Fclose-up-of-the-wordpress-panel-the-colored-status-dot-label.png)

![The document list showing sync pills next to document titles](https://workover.io/api/proxy-image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwp.wpdocsync.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2026%2F09%2Fthe-documents-list-showing-sync-pills-next-to-document-title-scaled-1.png)

![The Filter menu's WordPress sync section with Unpushed, WordPress update, and In sync options](https://workover.io/api/proxy-image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwp.wpdocsync.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2026%2F09%2Fthe-filter-menu-s-wordpress-sync-section-with-unpushed-wordp.png)

## States in the WP tab

| Label | What it means | What clears it |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Up to date with WordPress** | Nothing has changed on either side since the last push or pull. | Editing the document (it becomes unpushed) or editing the post in WordPress (it becomes **New changes in WordPress**). |
| **Unpushed changes** | The document’s body has changed since the last push or pull, and possibly some fields too. | Clicking **Push**. |
| **N unpushed field edits** | Only fields in the **WP** tab have changed. This count covers **Status**, **Permalink**, **Excerpt**, **Publish Date**, **Categories**, **Tags** and **Author**. | Clicking **Push**. |
| **New changes in WordPress** | The post was edited in WordPress after Workover last synced it. This state wins over unpushed changes when both are true. | Clicking **Pull** (which replaces the document here), or pushing and choosing **Overwrite anyway**. |
| **Not on WordPress yet** | The project is connected, but this document is not linked to a post. | Publishing the document for the first time. See [How to publish a document to WordPress for the first time](/docs/publishing-to-wordpress-for-the-first-time/). |

In the document list, **Unpushed changes** and **N unpushed field edits** both show as the **Unpushed** pill, and **New changes in WordPress** shows as the **WordPress update** pill.

## Messages instead of a state

Sometimes the **WP** tab shows a message in place of the status:

| Message | What it means | What to do |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Not connected to WordPress** | The project has no working WordPress connection. | Connect the project in **Project settings**. See [Connecting your WordPress site to Workover](/docs/connecting-your-wordpress-site/). |
| **We cannot reach this WordPress site** | Something in front of the site, such as a firewall or Cloudflare Access, answered instead of WordPress. The reason is shown underneath. | Follow **How to let Workover through**. See [Let Workover reach a site behind a firewall or Cloudflare Access](/docs/whitelist-ips/). |
| **Another tab is linked to WordPress** | The document syncs a different [tab](/docs/document-tabs/) to WordPress. | Click **Go to the WordPress tab**. |

## When a push is stopped

Clicking **Push** does not always send the document straight away. Workover stops and asks first in these cases:

| What stops the push | Dialog | Your options |
| --- | --- | --- |
| The post was changed in WordPress since your last sync. | **Before you push…**, “This post was changed in WordPress since your last sync. Pushing overwrites those changes.” | **Pull latest from WordPress first**, **Overwrite anyway** or **Cancel**. |
| The live post has more embedded videos or media than the document. | **Before you push…**, “Pushing would remove N embedded video(s)/media that exists on WordPress but isn’t editable here.” | **Overwrite anyway** or **Cancel**. Workover skips this check when you edit with **Edit in the WordPress block editor**. |
| The document links to Workover documents that aren’t live. | **One link points at a document that isn’t live** (or **N links point at documents that aren’t live**) | **Publish without that link** (or **those links**), **Cancel**, and, when a link points at a document you can see, **Keep the workover.io links anyway**. See [Linking to other documents in a WordPress post](/docs/linking-between-documents/). |
| There are unresolved suggestions in the document. | No dialog. **Push** is disabled and a warning explains why. | Accept or reject the suggestions. |

The first two can appear together in one dialog. For step-by-step fixes, see [How to fix a push to WordPress that failed](/docs/push-failures/).

A push made with a CLI or MCP token can never overwrite: if WordPress changed, the push stops and a person has to resolve it in the editor. Links to documents that aren’t live don’t stop a token’s push. They are removed, and the response lists them.

## How fresh the status is

- Opening the **WP** tab reads the linked post live, so the tab shows WordPress as it is at that moment.
- The pill in the document list is not a live check. Workover refreshes it in the background, at most once every five minutes per project when the list loads, and across every connected project about every 30 minutes. A stale pill corrects itself without any action from you.

## Related

- [How WordPress sync works](/docs/how-wordpress-sync-works/)
- [How to push a document to WordPress](/docs/pushing-to-wordpress/)
- [Pulling changes from WordPress](/docs/pulling-from-wordpress/)
- [How to fix a push to WordPress that failed](/docs/push-failures/)