Tumblr makes blogging super easy. The different types of posts available, combined with the ability to reblog just about anything, results in a one-of-a-kind experience. However, when you have accumulated a ton of messages over the years, it is not so easy to manage them. And that's where Tumblr's less unknown mass post editor comes in.
ContentsAccess Mass Post EditorFeatures and LimitationsMass+ New XKit Mini ExtensionCould have been a lot better
The Mass Post Editor, or the Mega Editor as it is often called, gives you the ability to delete multiple posts at once. Not only that, but you can also edit the tags of many posts at once. Sounds pretty useful, right? However, it is not with its flaws and limitations as you will soon discover.
So, let's go over the basics of using the Tumblr mass post editor and find out how it works. However, don't let its blandness get to you as you'll also learn about a nifty New XKit mini expansion. This new extension significantly improves the functionality of the Mega Editor.
Loading the mass post editor is quite tricky if you don't know how to do it. It's supposed to be on the dashboard, but where exactly? Start by opening the Account menu — under your main blog, select Articles.
And then you see the Mass Post Editor option in small print on the right side of the dashboard — it's almost like Tumblr doesn't want you to find it. Click on it and you will be taken directly to the Mega Editor.
But wait. How do I get him to open a secondary blog? Apparently there is no blog selector in the Mega Editor, is there? But see the address bar on your browser. Simply replace your primary blog username with a secondary blog username, then press enter to load it immediately.
Another way to access a secondary blog is to open said blog via the dashboard and then directly launch the mass post editor. But for a quick switch, replacing the username in the address bar is much better.
Now that you know how to access the mass post editor, let's see how it actually works. As you can see, all posts are presented as thumbnails, but broken down by month to make things easier to find.
Although you can scroll all the way to the bottom to access your old posts, you can use the drop-down menu in the top left corner of the editor to load posts from any month of any year .
This feature, as you will see later, is crucial for efficient post management with the New XKit's mini-extension filters, as only posts loaded on the page at any given time are affected.
Aside from purely text-based posts, thumbnails make it fairly easy to identify other types of posts – if in doubt, you can always double-click on a thumbnail to load the post into a dedicated tab, although the option maximizing them directly within the editor itself would have done wonders.
In the top right corner of the bulk post editor, you have a self-explanatory set of options labeled Delete, Edit Tags, Add Tags, and Deselect.
To get rid of unwanted messages, just click on the message thumbnails to select them. Unfortunately, you can't drag your cursor to select multiple at once. And, there is also a maximum limit of 100 posts which you cannot exceed at any time, which is probably the biggest failing of the mass post editor.
Once you've selected the thumbnails, click Delete. Finally, click OK on the pop-up confirmation window to get rid of it.
Note: You can't undo your actions, so make sure you haven't accidentally selected any important messages before you hit delete. The other feature offered by the bulk post editor is to allow you to add or remove tags across multiple posts (again a maximum of 100 at a time). Quite useful when it comes to refiling old messages.
Just like when you deleted your messages, just click on the ones you want to edit. The bulk post editor doesn't offer any way to filter posts by their tags, but it's something easy to do with the New XKit add-on. Wait, you'll find out soon!
To add tags to selected posts, click the Add Tags button. Enter the desired tags and click Add Tags to confirm.
At the same time, you can choose to remove all unwanted tags from all selected posts. Click Remove Tags, then check the boxes next to the tags you want to remove — click Remove Tags to confirm.
Note: The Mega Editor presents all the tags of all the selected posts, even if not every post has every tag.
Unfortunately, that's all there is to the mass post editor. But now it's time to check out what you've been waiting for – the Mass+ New XKit mini-expansion that'll make the Mega Editor go wild.
Tumblr's mass message editor is too simple. But fortunately, the New XKit with its mini Mass+ extension comes to the rescue. If you didn't already know, New XKit is a dedicated Tumblr add-on with dozens of mini-extensions that greatly enhances the core Tumblr experience.
And in this case, Mass+ adds several filtering options that make it easier to select specific post types. Not to mention that you can also filter posts by tags. Sounds awesome!
If you haven't set up the add-on yet, start by adding it to Chrome or Firefox.
New XKit for Chrome
New XKit for Firefox
Next, refresh the Tumblr dashboard and browse through the New XKit popups that appear on the screen to integrate it with Tumblr – nothing complicated there. Once you've gone through the pop-ups, click the New XKit icon on the dashboard.
In the New XKit management panel that appears, click Get Extensions. Find and click Install under Mass+, and you're good to go.
Load up the bulk post editor and you'll immediately notice the difference. The top right corner of the screen is now full of filter options. Starting with the ability to select up to 100 posts at once by clicking Select Top 100, which means no more clicking through tons of thumbnails. It's cute. The Deselect All option also allows you to instantly deselect all selected messages in a jiffy, even if they are the ones you manually selected.
And then come the other goodies – you can also filter posts by type, such as text, image, video, link, etc., which is just fabulous.
Cool tip: The filters only retrieve a maximum of 100 items from the most recent posts loaded into the Mega Editor. Therefore, consider reloading them monthly as you see fit to minimize the chances of always picking the same items.Next to each month, you should also find two separate options labeled Top 100 of this month and Deselect this month. The former lets you select the top 100 posts for any month, while the latter lets you uncheck selected posts in the rest month with a single click.
When it comes to filtering posts by tags, you need to enable an experimental feature for the Mass+ mini-extension. Back on your Tumblr dashboard, load up the XKit management panel, then click Mass+ under My XKit. Check the box next to Enable search by tag, then exit the panel.
Refresh the Bulk Post Editor and you should see a new option called Search by Tags.
Click on it and you can filter posts by any tag you insert, which you can then choose to remove or edit easily. And to avoid only the 100 most recent posts appearing, choose a month to determine your starting point when filtering repeatedly.
Note: Since searching by tags is still an experimental feature of Mass+, you can only search for one tag at a time. Still very useful, but keep an eye out for more improvements over time. Well, that's about it. As you have seen, the Mass+ New XKit mini-extension is quite impressive, so don't forget to use it. Tinker with it, and you should feel right at home in no time.
Tumblr really hasn't made any significant improvements to the mass message editor since its launch in 2010. But thanks to the Mass+ New XKit extension, you now have a great tool that can easily delete and edit hundreds of messages (in repeated attempts, of course) quite easily.
So what are you waiting for? Get your blogs cleaned up and updated!
