You cannot move Private nor Passworded posts to Draft. You must make them public first.

[BrianLayman]

This is an odd quirk of the editor and might be a security issue for some. However, there is no option from the main editor to move a post directly to draft status from Private nor from Passworded status. I suspect you can trash the post first and then mark it as draft and maybe you could do it from the quick edit. In any case marking as draft should be able to be done from within the actual editor without the disclosure of private information.

NOTE: This kinda is a security issue, but not in the way the check box is asking about. It is procedural. So I'm marking "I am not reporting a security issue."

[johnbillion]

It is actually possible to move directly from a private post to a draft post, but it's not very intuitive.

1. Click 'Edit' next to Visibility.
2. Switch from Private to Public.
3. An 'Edit' link will appear next to Status
4. Switch this from Published to Draft
5. Hit the Save Draft button

Is this a common enough action (or a complicated enough action) that this process should be improved?

[karmatosed]

With the focus on the new editor, this hopefully will be considered. Removing the keyword and tagging @joen for now.

[SirLouen]

Reproduction Report

Description

❌ This report can't validate that the issue can be reproduced.

Environment

• WordPress: 6.9-alpha-60093-src
• PHP: 8.2.29
• Server: nginx/1.29.1
• Database: mysqli (Server: 8.4.6 / Client: mysqlnd 8.2.29)
• Browser: Chrome 139.0.0.0
• OS: Windows 10/11
• Theme: Twenty Twenty 2.9
• MU Plugins: None activated
• Plugins:
  • Test Reports 1.2.0
  • User Switching 1.10.0

Testing Instructions

1. Create a new post, set Status as Private
2. Edit the Post, set Status as Draft
3. 👌 Status is switch to Draft correctly

Actual Results

1. ❌ Error condition is not occurring

Additional Notes

• As @johnbillion has commented this is only affecting the flow in classic editor version, not happening in Gutenberg, and the process is not intuitive, but is very old.
• With Gutenberg this is not happening anymore. We could consider "repairing" this as an enhancement for the old editor. But given that there is a workaround, that doesn't really force to Publish as stated in the OP, we can close this as worksforme

Supplemental Artifacts

Screencast in Gutenberg: ​https://f003.backblazeb2.com/file/wordpress-videos/wp-videos/2025/09/32773.mp4
Screencast in Classic: ​https://f003.backblazeb2.com/file/wordpress-videos/wp-videos/2025/09/32773-2.mp4