Overview
Clone any page, post, or LearnDash item in a single click instead of rebuilding it from scratch. This is ideal for course creators who want to reuse an existing course, lesson, or quiz as the starting point for a new one.
Duplicate Pages & Posts copies an item and everything attached to it. The duplicate inherits the original’s associated meta, settings, categories, tags, and custom taxonomies, so you start with an exact working copy rather than a blank slate.
The module can clone:
- Standard WordPress pages and posts
- Any registered custom post type
- LearnDash courses, lessons, topics, quizzes, certificates, and groups
- LearnDash quiz questions (LearnDash 2.6+)
Common use cases include spinning up a new course from a proven template, creating a variant of an existing quiz, or copying a marketing page before making edits.
Configure It
In the module settings you’ll see a list of every registered post type on your site. Decide which of these you want to be able to duplicate:
- Enable duplication per post type — Turn duplication on for the post types you actually clone. You can enable it for any post type, but post types that store custom data or link to other posts may not copy cleanly.
Important: Some custom post types contain data or relationships that don’t duplicate correctly. We strongly recommend testing any duplicated custom post type before relying on it in a live environment.
Note: Duplicating requires the edit_published_posts capability (and edit access to the specific item). By default this includes Administrators, Editors, and Authors, but not Contributors or Subscribers.
Usage
You can duplicate an item two ways:
- From the admin list of courses, lessons, topics, quizzes, or certificates
- From the Edit view of any of those post types
Note: Cloning a lesson or topic duplicates that single item only — it does not create new copies of its child topics or quizzes. (Duplicating a course is the exception: the duplicate reuses the original’s lesson/topic/quiz steps — see Cloning courses below.)
Cloning courses
There are 2 possible cloning outcomes, depending on whether or not Shared Course Steps is enabled. . The cloned course is created as a draft so you can review it before publishing.
Shared Course Steps Enabled
Cloning a course with Shared Course Steps enabled will not create unique copies of any lessons, topics or quizzes. They remain shared. Any edits made to the shared lessons, topics or quizzes will apply to any other course that shares the content.
Note: After enabling Shared Course Steps, when cloning a course that was created with Shared Course Steps disabled, the course structure must be modified and resaved before cloning to ensure that the steps are cloned.
Shared Course Steps Disabled
When cloning a course with Shared Course Steps disabled, the cloned course will be empty, with no lessons, topics or quizzes.
Cloning LearnDash quizzes
Quiz cloning is where this module stands out — it copies quiz questions, which most other duplication plugins handle poorly. Behavior depends on your LearnDash Shared Quiz Questions setting (LearnDash 2.6+):
- Shared Quiz Questions disabled — The duplicated quiz gets an independent copy of the questions. Editing them in one quiz does not affect the other.
- Shared Quiz Questions enabled — The duplicated quiz is assigned the same questions as the original. Editing a question in one quiz changes it in both.
Note: Because of how quiz question associations work, cloning an individual quiz question makes the clone appear in the same quiz as the original question.
Since the latest LearnDash update (v2.6.1), this feature causes a fatal error:
Uncaught Error: Call to protected method LDLMS_Course_Steps::build_steps() from context ‘uncanny_pro_toolkit\ClonePostsPagesLearnDashContents’ in …wp-content/plugins/uncanny-toolkit-pro/src/classes/clone-posts-pages-learn-dash-contents.php:428
However, if you just hit the back button, the post is successfully duplicated.
Thanks for letting us know about this! We’ll get it fixed in the next release.
i’m also having this problem. i hit clone, and the page goes white. i have to hit the back button to see the cloned post.
Hi Andrea, please check that you’re running the latest version of the Toolkit Pro plugin (3.0.3). If you are and continue to see this issue, please log a support ticket so we can help you out. https://www.uncannyowl.com/my-account/submit-a-request/
Can the items that are duplicated then be edited or modified?
Yes, they can definitely be edited and the original won’t be affected.
I own a Pro license. I have a question, can a FULL course be duplicated 100% with all its lessons, topics and quizzes?
Thanks a lot
If the LearnDash setting “Shared Course Steps” is enabled, this module will duplicate the course, keeping the associated lessons, topics and quizzes intact. This means that changing a lesson in the duplicate will change the lesson in the original, since they’re both “sharing” the same lesson. If “Shared Course Steps” is NOT enabled, this module will duplicate the course, but the duplicated course will be empty (no associated lessons, topics, etc.)
Does it also work on the questions?
Yes, this module will also duplicate quiz questions in LearnDash 2.6+.
First, thank you! Uncanny makes the cleanest, most reliable plugins for Learndash I’ve found….and I’ve done alot of searching!
I have one quick question: Using the plugin, can courses, lessons, and quizzes be exported and installed on another site? If so, must they exported individually, or can a whole course be packaged to include all associated lessons and quizzes?
Thanks so much!
Unfortunately, none of our plugins support exporting from or importing to another WordPress site. You can use various import/export plugins to copy the course, lesson and topic posts over, but the linkages between them (the course structure) would have to be rebuilt manually on the destination site, as post IDs will be different after import. LearnDash does include a built-in quiz import/export feature, so you could use that to move quizzes.
What is the simplest/fastest process to duplicate a course and it’s associated lessons, topics and quizzes? So far it seems as though you have to do a lot of manual linking unless I’m just viewing it incorrectly?
We don’t offer such a plugin ourselves, but Wisdm Labs has this plugin that may help: https://wisdmlabs.com/course-content-cloner-for-learndash/
I’m thinking of purchasing the pro version. In the documentation it is not clear: If I clone a lesson, are the topics cloned as well?
Best regards
Reinhard
They are NOT cloned. Have a look at the last part of the article; children are not cloned, only the post itself. Sorry about the confusion.
Hi,
It doesn’t work even with the “Shared Quiz Steps” activated. My course is cloned but empty.
I am with the Learndash Version 3.0.7.1 (upgraded from 3.0.7).
Best,
Please note that this module copies individual posts only, not an entire course. The same is true of quizzes, if the quizzes are made independent they won’t be cloned as children of the quiz.
OK – this does NOT clone a course. Not in the sense I think most people expect.
My expectation is that the course will be cloned WITH its lessons and other content. Without them the course is nothing. I’ve spent almost an hour being able to clone precisely NOTHING, thinking I had done something wrong, only to find what I am doing is right but what I am reasonably expecting is quite different.
I am pretty peeved that the instructions & description, even after several years of this feature being available, are not clear about this. I had to stumble across this thread and Ryan’s post from 6 Oct 2019 to find out this does NOT clone courses… >:
Hi Courtney,
Sorry to hear about your frustrations. We do have a “Cloning Courses” section in the Knowledge Base article near the top that does say what will happen when you attempt to clone courses; the behaviour is based on the Shared Course Steps setting. For the behaviour you wanted, have a look at the free Content Cloner plugin from Wisdm Labs.
I activated shared course steps, so I can clone a whole course at once. Now I want to clone. Before I do, I’d like to know: when I edit a topic of the cloned course , I do NOT want the original topic to change as well. The reason I clone is that I want a variation of the course, for a slightly different kind of customer. So 95% can stay the same… Can this be done with shared course steps?
Thanks for answering!
Hi Ronald,
For your scenario you should use https://wisdmlabs.com/course-content-cloner-for-learndash/ instead. It creates an independent copy of everything that allows you to make some changes to course content.
Hi Ryan, thx for explaining.
It makes me curious for what scenarios your function might be usefull then.
Best regards,
Ronald
Well, when we built it originally (this was a few years ago) a lot of our focus was on proper quiz and group cloning; other tools couldn’t handle those pieces properly and we needed a solution. Recently we’ve seen more people trying to use it for entire courses, but it’s not how we originally planned it. And then Wisdm came out with the course cloning plugin and make it free, so rather than duplicate effort we haven’t added the capability to clone all assets within a course to this module.
Aha, Ryan, clear now, thx!
What about WMPL translations? Are included in the clone result?
I’m afraid none of our plugins have native WPML integration at this time. There is no support for translated versions of LearnDash courses in this module.
I am using LearnDash 3.4, and enabling “Questions” as a clone-able content type does not add the duplicate option to the table view of my questions. What am I missing?
We just tested in our environment with LD 3.4.0.8 and the latest Toolkit version. We definitely see a “Clone this Question” link on the list of questions page. If this is still failing with the latest versions, are you able to open a ticket? It helps us better track issues.
Ryan, well shoot, this is a total user error on my part. I thought I already had that module turned on, and the nice shiny blue checkbox on Questions fooled me into thinking it was live. But, uh, activating the module fixed it, and Uncanny just saved me at least two hours. Thanks, and sorry for the false alarm.
I’ve run into the problem where I duplicated a course twice but didn’t have the Shared Course Steps enabled.
What’s the best way to go populate the new courses I’ve created by cloning?
Thanks.
Hi Nate, in this situation you’ll probably want to trash the cloned course and try again, assuming you do want the approach that uses Shared Course Steps. If you are trying to duplicate all lessons, topics and quizzes within a course, the Wisdm Labs Content Cloner may be a better fit.
Any answers to my last question? I’m looking to clone a course again and want to make sure I do it correctly. Thanks.
Hi Nate, the best way to make sure we can help with support question is via support ticket from your account or by emailing us at [email protected]. That way we can prioritize resolution and involve our developers as needed.