Published
The date the record went live. Empty means the record has never been published — it exists and is editable, but no visitor can reach it. Setting it is what makes a record public; clearing it takes the record back off the site without deleting anything.
Publish at
A scheduled date for going live. Set it in the future and the record stays invisible until that moment arrives, regardless of what the published date says. This is the field to use when content must appear at a particular time rather than as soon as you finish it.
Unpublish at
A scheduled date for coming down. Once that moment passes, the record stops being served, again regardless of the published date. Useful for anything with a genuine expiry — a campaign, a notice, a time-limited offer.
How they interact
The important thing is that these are independent. A record can carry a published date and a future publish-at date at the same time, and the schedule wins: it is not visible yet. Equally, a published record with an unpublish-at date in the past is already gone.
That combination is what produces the most confusing case — a record that reads as published everywhere you look and still cannot be opened. When that happens, read all three dates together rather than just the first one.
Inheritance
These dates are not the whole story. A record is only reachable if its parents are reachable too, so a correctly published record inside an unpublished section stays invisible until the section is published. Check the chain above the record before assuming its own dates are at fault.
Checking your work
Signed in to the admin, you are shown unpublished content deliberately, so your own view is not evidence. Confirm in a private window.