If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our introduction to WordPress themes. The detailed article explains what WP themes are and how using themes can be cost-effective and time-saving for online business owners.
This tutorial will show you how to update your WordPress theme with just a few clicks inside your admin area.
Updating WP Themes – Best Practices
Before updating your themes, we recommend going through the handy checklist below to help prevent any problems that may affect your site during the upgrade process.
1. Make A Complete Backup
Backing up your website before making any updates to your site is vital. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many free and paid plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here:
2. Check The Theme Update Notes
When WordPress upgrades its software to a new version, this can affect the functionality of certain themes. Depending on the theme you have installed, there may be some release notes accompanying an update listing any new features, improvements, bug fixes or important information pertaining to 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 any bugs and check to see if the new theme version doesn’t conflict with any existing plugins or settings 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 name with the same plugins and configuration settings and test new theme versions on your test site before applying it to your main 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 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 paid WordPress themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Use Child Themes For Heavily Customized Themes
If you have made extensive changes 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 modifications 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 to use 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 not complicated at all … a few simple clicks and you’re done! The step in the update process that takes the most time and effort to complete is the precautionary work involved prior to upgrading.
Many 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 recommended “best practice” methods to help you avoid problems. Ultimately, as a website owner, it is your responsibility to protect your online properties.
Updating Your Themes – Tutorial
Updating your themes from the WP dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress administration area …
Depending on which theme(s) are installed on your website, you may receive occasional alerts in your WP Dashboard that your theme(s) need updating …
Updating WordPress themes in the WP dashboard is easy. You can update your theme using the “Themes” screen, or the “Updates” section.
Updating WordPress Themes From The “Themes” Page
You can see which themes need updating by going to your Themes page.
Choose Appearance > Themes in your WP admin menu …
This brings you to the “Themes” page …
Themes with new versions display an “Update Available” message over their thumbnail image …
Locate the theme that needs to be updated and click on the “Update Available” notice.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress automatically updates the theme …
Your WordPress theme is now updated …
Repeat the process described above to update all of your outdated themes, or use the method below to upgrade multiple themes.
Updating Your Themes From The “Updates” Screen
Update your WordPress theme using the “Updates” screen as shown below:
To view all themes installed on your site that need updating, click on Dashboard > Updates …
This brings 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 upgrade process …
WordPress automatically updates all of your selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade your themes in your admin dashboard.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum