Since WordPress 5.0 and the launch of the block editor, the classic editor has been there… but now the countdown to its farewell has begun.

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Program transcript

Hello, I’m Alicia Ireland, and you’re listening to WPpodcast, bringing the weekly news from the WordPress Community.

In this episode, you’ll find the information from June 22 to 28, 2026.

The first concrete step in the gradual disappearance of the Classic block has been confirmed: starting with WordPress 7.1, the Classic block no longer appears in the block inserter by default.

This doesn’t affect anything you already have: the block remains registered, any existing Classic block keeps working and being editable exactly as before, and the traditional Classic editor — whether through the Classic Editor plugin or in post types that don’t use the block editor — is not affected at all.

The only thing that changes is you can no longer add a new Classic block from the menu, block library, or slash commands.

The underlying reason is architectural consistency: the Classic block is the only Core block that doesn’t behave like a block, but rather as opaque HTML rendered through an embedded TinyMCE editor, which forces it to be treated as a special case in much of the work done on the block system.