When you save a pattern in the WordPress editor, one toggle quietly decides its whole future: Synced. Leave it off and the pattern is a template — every insert is an independent copy, free to drift. Turn it on and every insert stays connected to the original: edit the pattern once, and every page using it updates. Same feature that used to be called reusable blocks; WordPress 6.3 renamed it and folded it into patterns, which is where it always belonged.
What is actually happening
A synced pattern’s content is stored once, in the database. Pages that use it do not carry a copy of the blocks — they carry a small reference to the pattern. When a page renders, WordPress resolves the reference and inserts the pattern’s current content. That is the entire trick, and it explains both superpowers and limits:
- Edit once, update everywhere — there is only one copy to edit.
- Instances are identical by default — they are all the same content, resolved at render time.
- Delete with care — pages reference the pattern, so it needs to keep existing.
Overrides: identical, except where you allow it
“Identical everywhere” sounds great until the footer CTA needs different button text on one landing page. That is what pattern overrides solve. Inside a synced pattern, you mark specific blocks — a paragraph, a heading, a button, an image — as overridable by giving them a name in the block’s Advanced panel. Each instance can then supply its own text or image for those blocks, while everything else stays locked to the pattern.
Layout drift — the thing that slowly ruins big sites — becomes impossible, while the content stays flexible exactly where you chose. Design once, defend it automatically.
When to sync, when not to
Sync the sections that must agree across the site: promo banners, signup CTAs, contact strips, legal notices, anything you would otherwise update in eleven places. Do not sync starting points — a hero you customize differently on every page gains nothing from syncing and loses the freedom to diverge. The test: if I edit this next month, should every page change? Yes → synced. No → regular pattern.
One more door
Out of the box, synced patterns are database creatures — they belong to one site. But the same edit-once-update-everywhere behavior can ship in a theme, as a file, with a single header line. That is the Synced Patterns for Themes story, and it changes what a theme can promise.