We’re excited to announce the first release candidate for ACF PRO 6.5. This release brings a host of UX improvements to the Flexible Content field – giving content editors more clarity, control, and speed when managing complex pages. As well as other improvements and bug fixes.

As it is a release candidate, we do not recommend using this on production sites, but have released it for the broader ACF community who wish to test on development and staging environments.

Flexible Content Gets Even Better

Flexible Content remains one of ACF PRO’s most powerful and widely used field types. In 6.5, we’ve focused on making it even easier to work with – especially for content editors managing large or complex pages.

Let’s take a closer look at the four new Flexible Content features included in this release.

Rename Layouts in the Editor

You can now rename each layout directly in the post editor. This doesn’t affect the layout key – it simply gives editors a way to label sections in a way that’s meaningful to them, like “Pricing CTA” or “Headphone Product Grid”.

This is especially helpful on long pages where layouts may look similar in structure but serve different purposes. It’s particularly useful when you have multiple instances of the same layout – renaming helps editors avoid confusion by clearly identifying which layout is which.

Rename ACF Flexible Content field layouts in the editor

Disable Layouts Without Deleting Content

Layouts can now be disabled without needing to delete them. Disabled layouts remain visible in the editor and retain all their data, but they won’t be rendered on the frontend.

This is ideal for staging content, archiving old sections, or temporarily hiding parts of a page – all without losing work or needing to recreate layouts later.

Disable Flexible Content layouts in the editor

Highlight the Active Layout During Editing

When editing a field inside a Flexible Content layout, that layout is now visually highlighted in the editor.

This gives content editors a clearer sense of where they are in the page structure – particularly useful when working with long or complex Flexible Content fields.

Focus styling for ACF Flexible Content layouts in the editor

Collapse and Expand Layouts in Bulk

You can now collapse or expand all layouts within a Flexible Content field at once.

Whether you want to tidy up the editor view or expand everything to get a better overview, this improvement makes navigating and managing layouts much faster.

Expand and collapse all Flexible Content field layouts with one click

Other Improvements

Date and Date Time Picker fields now include a new option to default to the current date. This small change can help streamline workflows and reduce clicks.

We’ve also removed the use of dynamic class properties across ACF’s codebase. This eliminates PHP 8.2 deprecation warnings in development environments, making it easier to maintain compatibility with modern PHP versions.

In addition to these changes, we’ve addressed several bugs, check out the full changelog below.

Testing the Release Candidate

To access this release, please log in to your account and navigate to the “Licenses” page. You can then select “6.5.0-RC1” from the available downloads or click on the ‘Install pre-release version’ tab for full instructions.

To hear about future pre-release versions as they are released, sign up to our Beta news email list.

What’s Next

We’re continuing work on ACF & ACF PRO 6.5 and expect to have another update available soon, which will contain any feedback implemented from this RC as well as some further improvements and bugfixes.

For the latest ACF news, follow us on X @wp_acf.

Changelog

  • New – Flexible Content layouts can now be renamed in the post editor, giving content editors better clarity when managing layouts
  • New – Flexible Content layouts can now be disabled, preventing them from rendering on the frontend without needing to delete their data
  • New – Flexible Content layouts can now be collapsed and expanded in bulk for faster content editing
  • New – Editing a Flexible Content layout now highlights the layout being edited, making it easier to identify
  • New – The Date and Date Time Picker fields can now be configured to default to the current date
  • Fix – Custom Icon Picker tabs now work correctly when used inside an ACF Block
  • Fix – Duplicating a Field Group no longer causes a fatal error when using Russian translations
  • Fix – ACF classes no longer use dynamic class properties, improving compatibility with PHP 8.2+
  • Fix – ACF PRO no longer shows an update available immediately after updating to the latest version
  • Fix – Field group metabox collapse and expand buttons are no longer misaligned in the post editor
  • Fix – The ACF Site Health section no longer causes a PHP warning when field group location rules are incomplete