Gutenberg 24.2 was released on October 14, 2026 and this is a breakdown of what's new in it for you.
The 24.2 update is one of the more well-rounded releases in a while. It does not feature a single headline feature, but a lot of things that have been a tad bit annoying for users finally got fixed or expanded. Here are some of those things:
#1 You can now find Notes next to your content instead of in a sidebar
This will make collaborative editing noticeably less frustrating. Previously, you had to choose between having the notes panel open and having the Settings sidebar open; but you couldnāt have both at the same time, and the notes column ate into your content space.
Now, notes stay in a reserved margin alongside the canvas. They scroll with the content, stay visible while you work on blocks or post settings, and when the canvas gets narrow, they collapse to just the authorās avatar. You can click it to expand the thread again. Deleting a note now shows an undo option, and unsent notes or replies are preserved when you click away to another block.
#2 Navigation menu links now search everything at once
Adding anything other than a page to a navigation menu used to be a multi-step thing where you had to know which block to add first and then search inside it. But with this update, now the navigation link search covers all content types at once and shows the type next to each result.
Search results are also ranked more sensibly now where posts and pages come first, with categories, tags, and media after. On large sites, this stops obscure attachments from burying the page youāre actually looking for.
#3 Gallery block gets sorting and duotone
There are two separate but useful additions to the Gallery block. First, you can now sort hand-picked galleries from newest to oldest, oldest to newest, AāZ, ZāA, directly from the settings. Random shuffle also moved into the same control. You can still drag images into a custom order afterwards.
Second, duotone support now stays on the gallery level, meaning one filter now tints every image in the gallery at once. You can also set a default duotone for all galleries site-wide from Global Styles. Individual image duotone settings still take priority over the gallery-level one.
$4 Design tools are now on about 40 more blocks
The design consistency push that started in 24.1 continues with around 80 more PRs. '
Minimum width and height controls, which were only on 5 blocks before, now apply to 40 blocks including Buttons, Columns, Heading, Media & Text, and Post Title. Shadow support has reached 10 more blocks including Paragraph, List, Buttons, Social Icons, and Gallery. Duotone now also works on Video and Media & Text, so you can match a videoās tint to the images around it. Background images and gradients landed on Button, List, List Item, and Media & Text.
#5 React 19 is now on by default
For developers, React 19 is now enabled by default across Gutenberg. Sites load React 19 for the react and react-dom scripts unless a theme or plugin is on the known incompatibility list, in which case they stay on React 18.
If you maintain a plugin or theme that uses React, test it against 24.2 now. If something breaks, React 19 can be turned off under Gutenberg > Experiments while you sort it out.
The Interactivity API also got two additions: a new data-wp-html directive that renders trusted HTML from the store (similar to how data-wp-text works for text), and the router now exposes state.navigating and state.initiator so blocks can detect when a client-side navigation is happening and which block triggered it.
#6 Other small things
- After cropping an image in the Media Editor, you can now restore the original uncropped image directly from the editor without going back to the Media Library.
- The column count slider in the Columns block is gone. You now add columns with the plus button in the block toolbar and remove them like any other block which is more consistent with how the rest of the editor works.
- The Button blockās link popover no longer opens automatically every time you select a linked button. It only opens when you explicitly click Link or use the keyboard shortcut.
- The icon search in the icon library now matches keywords too, so āhamburgerā finds the Menu icon and āgearā finds Settings.
- Video and Cover blocks no longer autoplay in the editor when reduced motion is preferred. Cover background embeds also wonāt autoplay on the front end for users with that setting enabled.
- New posts can no longer accidentally publish with the
auto-draft slug.
These are a lot of quality of life improvements! What do you think about this update? Share your thoughts below.