If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our overview of WordPress themes. This detailed article explains what WP themes are and how using a theme can save online business owners time and money.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to easily update a theme in your admin area.
Updating Themes – Best Practices Checklist
We recommend going through the checklist below before going through the upgrade process, to ensure that your update goes smoothly.
1. Make A Full Site Backup
Backing up your site before making any updates to your site is essential. If something goes wrong, you can always restore everything to its previous state.
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 have installed, there may be some release notes included with an update which provides an overview of any new features, improvements, bug fixes or important information pertaining to the new theme 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 an installed theme, track any bugs and make sure that all plugins are working fine with the new theme before applying it to a live site.
If you manage your own website, you can install 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 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 offer this 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 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 modifications are 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 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 not complicated at all … a few simple clicks and you’re done! The part of the upgrade process that takes the most time and effort to complete is the preparation involved prior to upgrading.
Some people don’t upgrade their themes regularly, while many upgrade without going through some or 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, it is the website owner’s responsibility to protect their online assets.
How To Upgrade A Theme In WordPress – Tutorial
Upgrading your themes in your admin dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on what theme(s) are installed on your site, you may receive occasional alerts in your dashboard that your theme(s) need updating …
Updating a WordPress theme from the WP dashboard is easy. You can update your theme via the “Themes” area, or the “Updates” area.
Updating Your Theme From The “Themes” Screen
You can see which themes require updating by going to your Themes area.
Choose Appearance > Themes in your WP admin menu …
This opens up the “Themes” page …
WordPress 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” message.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress automatically updates your theme in seconds …
Your theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the process described above to update all of your remaining themes, or use the method below to bulk upgrade multiple themes at once.
Updating WordPress Themes From The “Updates” Area
Update your theme using the “Updates” area as shown below:
To view all themes 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 upgrade process …
WordPress will automatically update all of the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade your theme from your admin dashboard.
***
"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now