WordPress 6.9 brings one of the most polished upgrades to the platform, focusing on improving how people edit, collaborate, and manage their websites. The new Notes feature allows teams to leave feedback directly on individual blocks inside the editor, eliminating back-and-forth messages and screenshots. Pair that with the ability to hide blocks on the frontend without deleting them, and creators now have more flexibility in staging content, revising layouts, and planning future updates.
While these two features are great for teams, they’re just as useful for solo creators. Even if you’re building a site on your own, Notes help you keep track of ideas and reminders directly on the page, and the Hide Block feature lets you experiment with layouts or draft content without affecting the live website. Together, they make the editing experience more flexible, more private, and much easier to manage at your own pace.

This release introduces several new blocks, including Accordion, Math, Terms Query, Time to Read, and Word Count — reducing the need for third-party plugins and making content creation more dynamic.
The Universal Command Palette also comes to the full WordPress dashboard, letting users jump anywhere — to settings, pages, and actions — simply by pressing Ctrl + K / Cmd + K, which dramatically speeds up navigation. Behind the scenes, performance gets a noticeable boost thanks to smarter asset loading, better caching, and improvements to both block and classic themes.
Developers are not left behind in this update. The Abilities API creates a standard way for WordPress, plugins, and themes to register what they can do so external tools and automation — including AI — can discover and trigger actions safely. Meanwhile, upgrades to the Interactivity API enable faster client-side navigation and fewer full page reloads, paving the way for app-like WordPress experiences. Taken together, WordPress 6.9 pushes the platform forward for all types of users — creators, site owners, and developers alike.
FAQs
No setup is required — the new features are available automatically after updating. Just open the editor to start using Notes, hidden blocks, new blocks, and the Universal Command Palette right away.

