How do I duplicate a Collection in Webflow?

Duplicate from the Collection settings

A Collection is the database for one kind of content, such as blog posts, projects, or team members. Each Collection has one template page and one set of fields. Duplicating it starts a second Collection with that same setup. It is not the same as duplicating a static page, and it does not clone the entries.

Click the CMS tab. Hover the Collection you want to copy and click the Settings icon. At the top of those settings, click the Duplicate Collection icon. Webflow opens the new Collection with Copy appended to the name and to the URL. The duplicate includes the Collection name, the URL, the basic info, and the custom fields.

Click Create Collection only after the name and the URL say what you want. You can still edit them later. Doing it now avoids publishing a URL that contains Copy.

Example: you already have Projects, with fields for a cover image, a summary, and a client name. You want a separate Case studies Collection with the same fields. Duplicate Projects, then rename it before you save, instead of designing a second schema by hand.

Rename the Copy name and the URL

The Collection name is what you see in the CMS panel. Webflow also generates a singular version and a plural version, such as project and projects. Click Plural version or Singular version under the name field if those labels should change. A Case studies Collection should not keep talking about projects in the Designer.

The Collection URL is the folder for the item pages. A Blog posts Collection with the URL post produces addresses like yourdomain.com/post/your-blog-post. Webflow builds the URL from the name, and you can replace it. On a duplicate, Copy is already appended. Set a clean slug, such as case-studies, before anyone links to it.

You cannot use a reserved slug as a Collection name or URL. If the name you want is rejected, choose a different slug rather than forcing the Copy suffix to stay.

Example: the duplicate arrives as Projects Copy, with Copy on the URL as well. Change the name to Case studies, set the singular and plural labels, and set the URL to case-studies. Then click Create Collection.

Expect the fields, not the items or the template design

The new Collection has the same custom fields as the original. Name and Slug exist on every Collection. Help text and the required setting are part of the field setup you already saved, because the duplicate includes the settings and the fields. Ecommerce fields are a separate case. Those default fields, such as Price, cannot be added as custom fields on a non-Ecommerce Collection, and they cannot be removed from an Ecommerce Collection.

What does not come across is the content. The items stay in the original Collection. The design you built on the original template page is not copied either. You get the schema, and you build the new template.

That split is useful when the new set of pages should look different. It is a problem if you expected every project to reappear under the new URL. They will not. Create items in the new Collection after it exists.

If you add, edit, or remove fields later, open the CMS tab, hover the Collection, and click Settings. A field that is used on a design, on a Collection page or its settings, or on a Collection list cannot be deleted until you remove that use. After a schema change, publish the whole site. Webflow says that full site publish is what makes a schema change show on the live site.

Add items and design the new template

Open the new Collection and create an item. Fill the fields you copied, including any marked required. Help text on a field tells an editor what to enter.

Then open the new Collection template from the Pages panel and design it. Bind the heading, the summary, and the cover to the fields on this Collection. The original Projects template is unchanged. Editing it does not design Case studies.

Example: add one case study with a real title, a two-sentence summary, and a cover image. On the Case studies template, bind a heading to the name, a paragraph to the summary, and an image to the cover. Publish later and open that item's URL. The other case studies can follow the same template once this one looks right.

A Collection list on a static page, such as a homepage row of case studies, has to be connected to Case studies. A list that still points at Projects will keep showing projects.

Publish, and redirect only if the URL already went live

Publish the site when the template and at least one item are ready to be public. Until that publish, the new URL is not the live page. If you renamed the URL before the first publish, visitors never saw the Copy address, and you do not need a redirect for it.

If you already published the Copy URL and then changed it, old links need a redirect. Webflow's pattern for a Collection folder is one rule, not one rule per item. Set the old path to /old-collection-url/(.*) and the redirect path to /new-collection-url/%1. Replace those placeholders with the slug you published and the slug you use now.

Check the live item. The address should use the new folder, the fields should show the item you entered, and the original Projects URLs should still open the original items. If the new URL is empty, the item was not published with the site. If the layout matches Projects exactly, you are on the original template, not the new one. If a homepage list still shows projects, point that list at Case studies and publish again.