---
title: "Understanding Article Statuses"
description: "When you create a new article in HelpDocs it'll have the Draft status. When you're ready to share it with the world you have a couple options. Here's what those statuses mean."
url: "https://support.helpdocs.io/article/oJI0ylcwEC-understanding-article-statuses"
category: "Managing Content"
updated_at: "2025-05-07T10:53:49Z"
---

# Understanding Article Statuses

Article statuses make it easy to understand whether visitors to your knowledge base can see your article 👀

### Understanding Article Statuses

By default all articles will start off as a **Draft**. This means nobody can see it unless they're logged into the HelpDocs dashboard.

You can then upgrade them to either **Private** or **Published** depending on how you want to share them.

| Status        | Can my team within the HelpDocs dashboard see this? | Can public visitors see this? |
|---------------|-----------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------|
| **Draft**     | ✅ Yes                                               | ⛔️ No                         |
| **Private**   | ✅ Yes                                               | 🔗 Only by direct link         |
| **Published** | ✅ Yes                                               | ✅ Yes                         |

If you've added a [shared password](/article/mNAoCKyr6T-shared-password-protection) or [restricted to logged in users](/article/YClKB8p02e-restricting-your-docs-to-logged-in-users), you'll need to set your article status to **Published** to make them visible to people with access.

### Changing an Article's Status

![](https://files.helpdocs.io/Ytt2uahFxY/articles/oJI0ylcwEC/1611690565062/change-article-status.gif)

You can change an article's status in the article editor and from the content tab using [Bulk tools](/article/jyd570o8vo-bulk-edit-status-author-and-stale-status-for-multiple-articles).

#### From the Article Editor

1. Click the **Status** button in the top left
2. Select your new status
3. Hit **Save Changes**

#### From the Content View

1. Select the articles you'd like to update
2. Click **Bulk Edit**
3. Change the **Status**
4. Click **Apply edits**