If you are new to WordPress, make sure to read our overview of WordPress themes. It explains what WP themes are and how using themes can be cost-effective and time-saving for business owners.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to easily update your WordPress theme inside the admin area.
Updating A WordPress Theme – Best Practices
We recommend going through the checklist below before attempting the upgrade process, to ensure that your update goes smoothly.
1. Back Up Your Site Fully
Backing up your website before making any changes to your site is vital. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of free and paid plugins you can use. You can read 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 accompanying an update listing any new features, improvements, bug fixes or important changes in the new theme version.
If the theme changes seem irrelevant or unimportant, you can skip the update. Otherwise, you should update.
3. Test Your 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 check to see if all plugins are working fine with the new theme before applying it to a live site.
If you’re managing your own website, you can set up a test WordPress site on a subdomain or a separate domain with the same plugins and configuration settings 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 and see if anyone has reported any serious problems with the new theme version.
You can enter 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. Is Your WordPress Theme Customized? Use A Child Theme
If you have made extensive customizations to your existing WordPress theme files, updating 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 that parent theme. When you update the “parent theme”, your customizations are preserved through the “child theme.”
If you plan to customize your theme files, then we recommend becoming familiar with 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 very simple. The part of the update 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 some or all of the steps listed in the section above. As mentioned earlier, the above are “best practice” methods to help you avoid problems. Ultimately, it is solely your responsibility as a website owner to protect your online assets.
How To Update Your WordPress Theme – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Updating your WordPress theme in the WP dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on the theme(s) you have installed on your website, you may receive occasional notifications in your dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating WordPress themes from the dashboard is easy. You can update your theme using the “Themes” section, or the “Updates” area.
Updating Your Theme Via The “Themes” Section
To see which themes need to be updated, go to your Themes area.
Choose Appearance > Themes from your WordPress admin menu …
This opens up the “Themes” page …
WordPress Themes that need updating display an “Update Available” message over their 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 automatically updates your theme …
Your WordPress theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the above process to update all of your out-of-date themes, or use the method described below to bulk update multiple themes at once.
Updating WordPress Themes Using The “Updates” Section
Update your WordPress themes via the “Updates” screen as follows:
To view all themes installed in your website that require updating, click on Dashboard > Updates …
This brings 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 upgrade process …
WordPress automatically updates all of the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade your WP themes from your dashboard.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group