If you are new to WordPress, make sure to read our introduction to WordPress themes. This comprehensive article explains what themes are and how themes can save small business website owners time and money.
This tutorial will show you how to update WordPress themes inside the dashboard.
Updating Your WordPress Theme – Best Practices
Before updating your WordPress themes, we recommend going through the checklist below to help prevent any problems occuring during the upgrade process.
1. Make A Complete Backup
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 things back to their former settings.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here:
2. Check The Theme Update Notes
Changes made to the WordPress software can affect the functionality of certain themes. Depending on the theme you have installed, there may be some release notes accompanying an update listing new features, improvements, bug fixes or any other 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 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 an installed theme, track any bugs and verify that all plugins are working fine with the new theme before installing it on 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 name using the same configuration settings (e.g. plugins) and play with the new theme versions on your test site before applying it to your live site.
4. Search Online
Before updating your theme, it’s a good idea to do a quick search online and see if anyone has reported any issues 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 paid WordPress themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Is Your WordPress Theme Customized? Use A Child Theme
If you have made extensive changes 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 the parent theme. When you update the “parent theme”, all customizations get 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 to use a theme that gets regularly updated. You can learn more about child themes by searching online, or just visit the official WordPress child theme page here:
As you will see below, the actual process of updating a WordPress theme is simple. The step that takes the most time and effort to complete is the precautionary work 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 your responsibility as a website owner to protect your digital properties.
Upgrading WP Theme From Your Admin Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Upgrading your WordPress theme from the WP dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress administration area …
Depending on the theme(s) installed on your website, you may receive an occasional notification in your dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating a theme in your dashboard is a very simple process. You can update your WordPress theme from the “Themes” feature, or the “Updates” screen.
Updating Your Themes From The “Themes” Screen
To see which themes need to be updated, go to your Themes area.
Select Appearance > Themes from your WP admin menu …
This brings you to the “Themes” page …
WordPress Themes with new versions 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 automatically updates the theme in seconds …
Your theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the above to update all of your outdated themes, or use the method described below to upgrade multiple themes at once.
Updating WordPress Themes Via The “Updates” Section
Update your WordPress theme using the “Updates” page 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 …
Select all the themes you want to update and click on Update Themes to complete the bulk update process …
WordPress automatically updates all of the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade your WP theme from your admin dashboard.
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