🕹️ Temporarily Pause Or Stop Your Queue

Sometimes you may need to pause your Queue - whether it’s during seasonal breaks, while reviewing your content strategy, or when updating social profiles and permissions. 

SmarterQueue provides flexible options to pause publishing for specific Categories, Social Profiles, or even your entire Queue, and resume it when you’re ready.

📌 In This Article

• How To Pause The Entire Queue
• How To Pause Individual Categories Or Social Profiles
• Resuming Publishing
• Post Behavior While Paused

How To Pause The Entire Queue

To stop publishing across your entire Queue:

1. Navigate to the Queue: Go to the "Publish" section and select your Queue.
2. Toggle the Pause Button: Locate the option to “Pause All” publishing in the upper-right corner and toggle it on.
3. Confirm Your Action: You’ll receive a confirmation prompt to ensure you want to pause all posts. Once confirmed, no content will be published until you resume.

Paused content will remain in the Queue but will not be published until you resume the combination. You will also find it under “Paused” instead of “Upcoming”.

How To Pause Individual Categories Or Social Profiles

To pause publishing for individual Categories, Social Profiles, or specific combinations:

1. Go to Pause Settings: Navigate to the Pause Settings section of SmarterQueue by clicking the link in the confirmation prompt after toggling “Pause All” in the Queue, or by selecting “Organization Settings” via the cog icon in the upper-right corner.
2. Check the Custom Pause Controls options:

• Pause per Category: Set each Category to Active or Paused. This applies to that Category across all Social Profiles.
• Pause per Profile: Set each Social Profile to Active or Paused. This applies to all Categories on that Social Profile.

What Does “Mixed” Mean?

If you see “Mixed”: A Mixed status means that the settings differ across the Category and Social Profile combinations.

• For a Category, some Social Profiles may be Active while others are Paused.
• For a Social Profile, some Categories may be Active while others are Paused.

You don’t select Mixed; it appears automatically when the settings are different.

For example, to pause the Articles Category only for your Instagram Profile, first set Articles to Paused under Pause per Category. All Social Profiles will then show Mixed, because Articles is Paused while their other Categories remain Active. Under Pause per Profile, set all the other Social Profiles to Active. The Instagram Profile will remain Mixed. Articles will also show Mixed, because it is Paused on Instagram but Active on the other Social Profiles.

Resuming Publishing

To resume publishing:

1. Re-enable Individual Categories or Social Profiles: If you’ve paused specific combinations, return to “Pause Settings” and toggle the pause button off.
2. Resume All Content: If you paused the entire Queue, return to the Queue and toggle publishing back on using the “Unpause All” button.
3. Check Your Queue: Review the Upcoming section to ensure posts are scheduled as expected.

Post Behavior While Paused

When you pause your Queue (or specific Categories or social profiles), all affected posts move to the "Paused" section. They remain part of your Queue but are temporarily hidden from the "Upcoming" view until publishing resumes.

While the Queue is paused, no new posts will publish. Depending on how long the pause lasts and how each post was scheduled, their state may change:

“Post Now” posts are still published immediately. Pausing the Queue gives you time to halt automation and review your scheduled content, while "Post Now" allows you to make specific posts in the meantime, offering flexibility as you update or assess your content.

Seasonal Category Behavior

When a Seasonal Category is outside its active date range, it’s considered paused automatically.

Any posts from that Category that are saved in your Queue will appear in the "Paused" section until the Category becomes active and its Timeslots are available again.