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Updated Jul 2026

Publish manually with an export file

Download a file with everything you need to publish a post yourself, platform by platform. Use this when automatic publishing isn’t turned on for your account, or for any platform you prefer to post to by hand.

Before you start

You need a post open. Open it from the Content page. See Review and approve your posts.

Steps

  1. In Group Actions, on the right side of the post’s page, select Download files (manifest).
  2. While the file is prepared, the button reads “Preparing download…”.
  3. Your browser downloads a JSON file named manual-publish-manifest-{post ID}.json. The ID in the filename is the post’s own ID, the same one shown in its /post/:id URL.

What’s in the file

For each platform version in the post, the file includes:

  • The text content (your edited version if you made one, otherwise the original).
  • Any links found in that text.
  • The web addresses of the media attached to that platform version. If a platform version has no media of its own, the post’s shared media is used instead.
  • For a blog platform version: its title, URL slug, meta description, and body.

The file also includes a checklist to work through as you publish each platform version by hand: confirm the copy and any call-to-action per platform, attach or verify media, set the publish time in that platform’s own scheduler, and, for a blog post, confirm its SEO title, meta description, links, headings, and call-to-action placement. The checklist also reminds you to keep track of each post’s live URL after you publish it.

When to use this

Download files (manifest) is available on every post, whatever its status: pending, approved, or already posted. Two situations call for it:

  • Automatic publishing is off. If publishing to social platforms isn’t turned on for your environment, Post Now shows “Publishing is turned off in this environment — approved posts stay in the queue for manual posting.” Approving a post still records your sign-off and keeps it in the queue. Use the exported file to publish it on each platform yourself.
  • You publish a platform by hand on purpose. For example, a platform you prefer to post to manually even when automatic publishing works for your other connections.

How this relates to approval

Downloading the file doesn’t change the post’s status, and it doesn’t publish anything by itself. A post still needs to be approved before you act on it. The file is a copy of the approved content and links for you to carry over to each platform’s own posting tools. If automatic publishing is off, the post stays approved in the queue after you publish it manually elsewhere. Nothing in the app marks it as posted for you, and there’s no action to mark a manually-published post as posted afterward. The post won’t show up on the History page unless you find another reason to change its status.