In this tutorial, we will guide you on how to bulk edit custom fields added with the Custom Field Suite plugin. You’ll see how to view and manage custom fields using a spreadsheet, how to export custom fields to a CSV file, and how to import custom fields from a CSV file into WordPress.
Custom Field Suite
Custom Field Suite is a WordPress plugin that allows you to add custom fields to your posts, pages, and other post types, including custom post types added by third-party plugins. You can add custom fields to any WordPress content type, including posts, pages, media, users, events, downloads, products, etc. You can also add custom fields to your taxonomy terms.
Custom Field Suite allows you to create these types of custom fields:
- Text
- Textarea
- Wysiwyg Editor
- Hyperlink
- Date
- Color
- True / False
- Select
- Relationship
- Term
- User
- File Upload
- Loop
- Tab
WP Sheet Editor
WP Sheet Editor is a suite of spreadsheet bulk editors for WordPress. You can edit any post type, taxonomy term, and even a custom database table using an intuitive spreadsheet inside WordPress. This way, you can save a lot of time by viewing and managing your WordPress content in one place.
WP Sheet Editor has some cool features to boost your productivity:
- Bulk editing
- Advanced search
- Duplicate posts
- Export posts to CSV
- Import posts from CSV
- Use any field as a search filter
- Edit any field in a spreadsheet
Click here to learn more about the different spreadsheets.
Note – In this example, we will bulk edit custom fields added to our WordPress posts, but you can follow the same steps to manage custom fields added with Custom Field Suite on posts, pages, products, downloads, media, users, events, etc.
We will use the WP Sheet Editor – Post Types plugin, which allows you to view and manage posts, pages, and custom post types using a spreadsheet.
You can download the plugin here:
Download Posts, Pages, and Custom Post Types Spreadsheet Plugin - or - Check the features
You need to follow these steps to bulk edit custom fields added with the Custom Field Suite plugin.
1- View Custom Field Suite fields in the spreadsheet
In this example, we’re using the WordPress posts spreadsheet, but you can follow the same steps if you’re using any other WP Sheet Editor spreadsheet.
To open the posts spreadsheet, go to WP Sheet Editor → Edit posts.
You’ll see a spreadsheet containing your WordPress posts. Every post is a row in the spreadsheet, and every field is a column.
If you scroll to the right in the spreadsheet, you will see the custom fields displayed as columns.
Note – If you don’t see the custom fields in the spreadsheet, you can go to Settings → Scan DB to find fields. Normally, the spreadsheet will scan the custom fields automatically, but you can do this if the fields are not displayed the first time you open the spreadsheet.
2- Edit Custom Field Suite fields in the spreadsheet
You can use the spreadsheet to edit all the fields of your posts, products, pages, etc., including the custom fields added with the Custom Field Suite plugin.
Each field added with Custom Field Suite will work in the spreadsheet according to the field type.
For example, you can edit text fields using the spreadsheet.
You can also use the drop-down selection fields in the spreadsheet.
These fields will display the options for you to select the option you want.
The date fields will display a calendar where you can intuitively select the date.
The file upload fields will allow you to open the media library for you to select or upload files from your computer (images, videos, etc.).
As you can see below, we have opened the media library from the spreadsheet to select an image.
As we have shown you, the spreadsheet will allow you to edit any custom field added with the Custom Field Suite plugin. Each cell and column will work according to the field type.
Once you have made all the changes you want, you can click on Save.
This is a great way to edit hundreds of fields and posts in one place. You can use the spreadsheet to apply changes to thousands of posts at the same time. The process of editing custom fields will be completely simplified.
3- Advanced search for Custom Field Suite
WP Sheet Editor allows you to turn any Custom Field Suite field into a search filter to find posts, pages, products, users, and any other type of content easily.
This is great because you can do advanced searches, combined searches, and locate content easily.
For this, you can use the Search tool.
To search for content using custom fields added with the Custom Field Suite plugin, you will need to enable advanced search filters.
Let’s see some examples of the values you need to use with different custom field types.
a) Text fields
We have added text fields to add the post author’s name, and we can search for exact texts or posts containing some specific text. For example, if we want to search for all authors whose last name is “Smith”, we need to select these values:
Tick the Enable advanced filters checkbox.
- Field: Select the text field you want to use as a search filter.
- Operator: CONTAINS
- Value: Enter the text here.
As you can see below, we have filtered all the posts containing the “Smith” text, and we have found two results.
b) Drop-down fields
You can use drop-down fields as search filters to find specific content.
For example, we have created a field to select if the author is part of the staff or if he/she is a guest author.
For this, we need to tick the Enable advanced filters checkbox, select the drop-down field, the = operator, and the drop-down selection field option we want to find.
Once we select the values, we need to click on Run search.
As you can see below, we have filtered all the “Guest” authors.
c) Date fields
You can use date fields as search filters.
For example, we have added a field to add the date of birth of the author of the post, so we will search for all authors who were born before a specific date (12/31/1999).
For this, we need to tick the Enable advanced filters checkbox and select these values:
- Field: Select the date field here.
- Operator: <=
- Value: Select the date here.
- Click on Run search.
As you see below, we have filtered all the posts whose author was born before December 12, 1999.
d) Image fields
We can use image fields as search filters to find our content.
For example, we have added an image field called “Author’s photo”, and we want to find all posts missing author’s photo.
We need to tick the Enable advanced filters checkbox and select these values:
- Field: Select the image field here.
- Operator: =
- Value: In this example, we will leave this field empty.
- Click on Run search.
As you see, we have filtered the posts missing author’s photo.
4- Bulk edit Custom Field Suite fields
WP Sheet Editor is a powerful bulk editor for posts, pages, and custom post types.
It allows you to bulk update custom fields on thousands of items with a few clicks.
In this case, it allows you to bulk edit fields added with Custom Field Suite. You can save a lot of time because you don’t have to edit custom fields on your posts one by one.
You can bulk update all your posts, all posts from a specific search, or all posts that you manually select in the spreadsheet.
Start by opening the Bulk Edit tool.
In this example, we will select a specific drop-down selection option for all our WordPress posts.
We need to select these values in the Bulk Edit tool:
- Select the rows you want to update: You can edit all items, all the items from a specific search, or all items you’ve selected manually in the spreadsheet.
- Select the field you want to edit: You need to select which custom field you want to update in bulk.
- Choose the type of edit you want to apply: You can set a new value to replace any other value with the new value, replace specific values, clear values, etc.
- Add the new values: Depending on the type of edit you have selected, you need to add the values you want to assign to the custom fields.
- Click on Execute now.
5- Export Custom Field Suite fields to CSV
WP Sheet Editor allows you to export your WordPress content to a CSV file, including Custom Field Suite fields.
This is a great way to download your Custom Field Suite data to a CSV file.
Start by opening the Export tool.
Now select the following values to export your Custom Field Suite fields to a CSV file:
- Select the columns (fields, custom fields) that you want to export: Here you can select all active columns all columns, or specific columns.
- Select the rows that you want to export: You can export all the rows, all rows from a specific search, or all manually selected rows.
- Select the app you’ll use to open the CSV file: In this example, we will use the Microsoft Excel app.
- Add a name for this export: This is optional.
- Click on Start new export.
As you can see in the screenshot, we have exported the data from Custom Field Suite to edit the custom fields in Excel.
6- Import Custom Field Suite fields from CSV
WP Sheet Editor allows you to import data from a CSV into WordPress.
This means you can import Custom Field Suite data from a CSV file into your WordPress site. This is a great way to bulk update Custom Field Suite fields from a CSV file.
Start by opening the Import tool.
Second, you need to select the CSV file you want to import:
- Source: CSV file from my computer
- Click on Choose File and select the CSV you want to import.
- Click on Next.
Third, you need to select the columns you want to import.
You can Import all the columns or Select individual columns to import.
Now you need to select how you want to import the data.
We will Update existing items, ignore new items.
We will match the CSV columns with the WordPress fields using the ID field.
Click on Next.
Finally, you can click on The preview is fine, start import to start importing Custom Field Suite data from the CSV into WordPress.
This is how you can bulk edit your Custom Field Suite data using a spreadsheet on WordPress. You can view and manage all your custom fields in the spreadsheet, use any custom field as a search filter, bulk update custom fields with a few clicks, export Custom Field Suite data to a CSV file, and import custom fields from a CSV file into WordPrss.
The WP Sheet Editor suite of plugins will improve your productivity by allowing you to bulk update Custom Field Suite data on posts, pages, users, taxonomy terms, products, events, downloads, and any other custom post type compatible with the Custom Field Suite plugin.