If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our overview of WordPress themes. It explains what WordPress themes are and how using themes can save small business website owners time and money.
This tutorial will show you how to easily update themes to their latest version inside your dashboard.
Upgrading Themes – Best Practices Checklist
We recommend going through the checklist below before going through the upgrade process, to help minimize any problems affecting your site during your updating process.
1. Back Up Your Site
Backing up your website before making any changes to your site is vital. Whenever something doesn’t go as planned, you can always restore things back to their previous state.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here:
2. Check The Changelog
When WordPress upgrades its software to a new version, this can affect the functionality of certain themes. Depending on the theme you are using, there may be some release notes included with an update listing any new features, improvements, security fixes or important changes in the new version.
If the theme changes seem irrelevant or unimportant, you can skip the update. Otherwise, you should upgrade.
3. Test The Theme
If you can, it’s a good idea to check the theme before installing it on your site.
Typically, web service providers will set up a test site where they can test the latest version of a theme, track any bugs and make sure that all plugins are working fine with the new theme before applying and activating it on a live site.
If you’re managing your own website, you can install a test WordPress site on a subdomain or a separate domain name with the same configuration settings (e.g. plugins) and play with the new theme versions on your test site before applying it to your live website.
4. Search Online
Before updating your theme, it’s a good idea to search online to see if other theme users have reported any serious problems with the new theme version.
You can type the theme name and version into Google, and search the theme developer’s support forum (many developers provide forums for premium themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Use Child Themes For Heavily Customized WordPress Themes
If you have made extensive customizations to your existing theme files, upgrading your theme could result in your custom modifications being overwritten. To prevent losing your theme modifications, therefore, we recommend you learn how to create “child themes”.
A WordPress child theme is a theme that inherits the functionality of another theme, called the parent theme, and allows you to modify, or add to, the functionality of the parent theme. When you update the “parent theme”, your customizations get preserved through the “child theme.”
If you plan to customize your theme files, then we recommend becoming familiar with using child themes, especially if you plan on using a theme that gets regularly updated. You can learn more about child themes by searching online, or just visit the WordPress Codex child theme page here:
As you will see below, the actual process of updating a WordPress theme is simple. The bit of this process that takes the most time and effort to complete is the preparation involved prior to upgrading.
Some people don’t upgrade their WordPress themes regularly, while others upgrade without going through all of the steps listed in the section above. As mentioned earlier, the above are “best practice” methods for ensuring problem-free upgrades. Ultimately, it is solely your responsibility as a website owner to protect your online properties.
How To Upgrade A Theme In WordPress – Tutorial
Updating your WordPress themes from the WP dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress administration area …
Depending on what theme(s) you have installed on your site, you may receive occasional alerts in your dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating a WordPress theme from the WP dashboard is very simple and easy. You can update your WordPress theme via the “Themes” page, or the “Updates” feature.
Updating Your Site Themes Via The “Themes” Area
You can see which themes need to be updated by going to your Themes area.
Select Appearance > Themes from your WP admin menu …
This opens up the “Themes” screen …
WordPress Themes that need updating display an “Update Available” message over the theme’s thumbnail image …
Locate the theme that needs to be updated and click on the “Update Available” alert.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress will automatically update the theme in seconds …
Your theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the process described above to update all of your remaining themes, or use the method described below to upgrade multiple themes.
Updating Your Site’s Theme Via The “Updates” Section
Update your WordPress themes from the “Updates” area as follows:
To view all themes installed in your site that require updating, click on Dashboard > Updates …
This opens up the Updates screen. Scroll down to the Themes section …
Check the box next to all the themes you want to update and click on Update Themes to complete the bulk update process …
WordPress will automatically update all of the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your WP themes from your admin dashboard.
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