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Duplicate Menu

Duplicate any WordPress navigation menu with a single click. The copy preserves every detail – menu items, hierarchy, CSS classes, link targets, and descriptions – so you can experiment freely without touching your live menu.

Use Cases

  • Test Menu Changes – Clone your primary menu, rearrange items, and preview changes before committing to the live navigation
  • Seasonal Menus – Duplicate your standard menu and add holiday promotions, event links, or seasonal landing pages without rebuilding from scratch
  • Multi-Location Menus – Create location-specific menus by duplicating a base menu and adjusting links for each branch or region

How It Works

  1. Navigate to Appearance → Menus in your WordPress admin
  2. Select the menu you want to duplicate
  3. Click the Duplicate Menu button (located next to the Save Menu button)
  4. A complete copy is created with all items, hierarchy, CSS classes, link targets, and descriptions intact
  5. The copy is automatically named “Menu Name (Copy)” – or “(Copy 2)”, “(Copy 3)”, etc., if a copy already exists
  6. You are redirected to the new menu with a success notice

Where to Find It

Location: Go to Appearance → Menus (nav-menus.php). When editing any menu, you will see the “Duplicate Menu” button next to the Save Menu button.

Settings

This module has no configurable settings. Simply enable the module in Switchboard and the Duplicate Menu button appears on the Menus screen.

Use Duplicate Menu before making large-scale changes to your navigation. If something goes wrong, you still have the original menu untouched and ready to reassign.

What Gets Copied

Every aspect of the menu is preserved in the duplicate:

ElementCopied?
Menu items and pagesYes
Nested hierarchy (parent/child)Yes
Custom CSS classesYes
Link targets (_blank, etc.)Yes
Title attributesYes
DescriptionsYes
Custom linksYes
Category and tag itemsYes

FAQ

Does the duplicate include menu location assignments?No. The duplicated menu is not assigned to any theme location. This is intentional – it prevents the copy from accidentally replacing your live navigation. You can assign the duplicate to a location manually when you are ready.
Is there a limit to how many times I can duplicate a menu?No limit. Each copy gets an incremented name – “Menu Name (Copy)”, “(Copy 2)”, “(Copy 3)”, and so on. You can create as many copies as you need.
What permissions are required to duplicate a menu?You need the edit_theme_options capability, which is the same permission required to manage menus in WordPress. By default, only Administrators have this capability.
Will this work with custom menu walkers or mega menus?The duplication copies the standard WordPress menu structure stored in the database. Custom mega menu plugins that store additional metadata on menu items will have that data copied as well, since it is stored as post meta. However, plugin-specific configurations stored elsewhere may not carry over.

This module only duplicates WordPress navigation menus managed through Appearance → Menus. Block-based navigation menus in Full Site Editing themes use a different system and are not currently supported.

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