If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our overview of WordPress themes. It explains what themes are and how themes can be cost-effective and time-saving for business website owners.
This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to upgrade your WordPress theme inside your dashboard.
Upgrading A WordPress Theme – Best Practices
Before updating your WordPress themes, we recommend going through the checklist below.
1. Back Up Everything
Backing up your website before making any changes to your site is essential. 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 many free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. You can read 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 a changelog file accompanying an update listing any new features, improvements, bug fixes or any other changes in the new theme version.
If the changes seem irrelevant or unimportant, you can skip the update. Otherwise, you should upgrade.
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 the theme, track bugs and check to see if all plugins are working fine with the new theme before installing and activating 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 using the same plugins and configuration settings and test 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 do a quick search online and see if anyone has reported any issues 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 paid themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Is Your Theme Heavily Customized? Use A Child Theme
If you have made extensive changes to your existing WordPress 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 that parent theme. When you update the “parent theme”, your modifications get preserved through the “child theme.”
If you plan to customize your theme files, then we recommend becoming familiar with the use of 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 easy. The part of the updating process that takes the most time and effort to complete is the precautionary work involved prior to upgrading.
Some people don’t upgrade their themes regularly, while many 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, as a website owner, it is your responsibility to protect your digital assets.
Upgrading Your Themes – Tutorial
Upgrading your WP themes from your dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress administration area …
Depending on the theme(s) installed on your site, you may receive occasional alerts in your WordPress Dashboard that your theme(s) need updating …
Updating WordPress themes from your WP dashboard is quite simple and easy. You can update your site’s theme via the “Themes” area, or the “Updates” screen.
Updating WordPress Themes From The “Themes” Page
To see which themes need updating, go to your Themes page.
Select Appearance > Themes from your WordPress admin menu …
This opens up the “Themes” screen …
Themes that need updating display an “Update Available” message over their thumbnail image …
Locate the theme you want to update and click on the “Update Available” notice.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress will automatically update the theme in seconds …
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 update multiple themes.
Updating Your Site’s Theme From The “Updates” Screen
Update your WordPress themes from the “Updates” area as follows:
To view all themes on your site that need 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 upgrade process …
WordPress automatically updates all of your selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade your theme from your admin dashboard.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)