If you are new to WordPress, make sure to read our overview of WordPress themes. We’ve written a detailed article that explains what themes are and how using themes can save website owners significant time and money.
This tutorial will show you how to easily upgrade your WordPress themes to a new version inside the admin area.
Upgrading Themes – Best Practices Checklist
Before updating your themes, we recommend going through the handy checklist below.
1. Back Up Your Files
Backing up your website before making any updates to your site is vital. Whenever something doesn’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 free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups 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 which provides an overview of new features, improvements, security fixes or any other changes in the new version.
If the theme changes seem irrelevant or unimportant, you can skip the update. Otherwise, it’s best to 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 the theme, track any bugs and verify that all plugins are working fine with the new theme before applying and activating it on a live site.
If you manage 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 main site.
4. Search Online
Before updating your theme, it’s a good idea to search online and see if other theme users have 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 offer this for paid 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 WordPress theme files, updating your theme may 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 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 use a theme that gets regularly updated. You can learn more about child themes by searching online, or visit the WordPress Codex child theme page here:
As you will see below, the actual process of updating a WordPress theme is fairly simple. What can feel slightly bothersome 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 recommended “best practice” methods for ensuring problem-free upgrades. Ultimately, it is solely your responsibility as a website owner to protect your digital assets.
Updating A Theme In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Upgrading your WordPress theme from your admin dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on which theme(s) you have installed on your site, you may receive an occasional notification in your dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating a theme from the dashboard is quite simple and easy. You can update your theme from the “Themes” page, or the “Updates” page.
Updating Your Theme Using The “Themes” Page
To see which themes require updating, go to your Themes page.
Choose Appearance > Themes from your WP dashboard menu …
This brings you to the “Themes” page …
WordPress Themes with new versions display an “Update Available” message over their thumbnail image …
Locate the theme you want to update and click on the “Update Available” message.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress will automatically update your theme …
Your WordPress theme is now updated …
Repeat the above process to update all of your remaining themes, or use the method below to update multiple themes.
Updating WordPress Themes Using The “Updates” Page
Update your WordPress themes via the “Updates” page 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 the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your theme from the WP 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