How to Find the IDs of WordPress Tags, Posts or Categories

Many years ago, before 2008, WordPress would show an “ID” column for important content items. You can see this ID column in the old WordPress screenshot below. Each post has a unique ID that’s used to identify that post in the database.

This ID has been hidden for most WordPress users for 15 years because normally it’s not very useful. Most people don’t need to see the ID.

However, sometimes you will need to find the ID of post, tag, category, or other content item in WordPress. In this guide, I’ll show you how to easily find the ID for Posts, Pages, Tags, Categories, and more. You can do this by using the Reveal IDs plugin.

Now when you go to to the “Posts” screen, there will be a new column on the right side:

The Reveal IDs plugin will also add an ID column to other screens such as “Posts”, “Tags”, “Categories”, and more. It’s not possible to use the plugin to hide the ID column on a specific panel, but you can remove it using the “Screen Options” tab.

In this next screenshot, you can see the ID column for WooCommerce products:

Advanced users can look in the database for the ID. They can also find the ID in the URL of the admin pages where you edit that item. You can find the post ID without a plugin by navigating to the “Posts” or “Pages” section in your WordPress dashboard and hovering your mouse over the title of a specific post. In the browser’s status bar, you will usually see a URL with a format similar to this:

Https://example.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1234&action=edit

In this example, the post ID is “1234.” This number is what identifies the specific post within the database.

When you create a new post in WordPress, whether it’s a blog post, a page, or a custom post type, WordPress assigns a unique post ID to that particular entry. This ID is automatically generated and cannot be easily changed or modified.