If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our overview of WordPress themes. We’ve written a detailed article that explains what WordPress themes are and how using themes can be cost-effective and time-saving for business website owners.
This tutorial will show you how to easily upgrade your themes in the dashboard.
Upgrading Your WordPress Theme – Best Practices
Before updating any themes, we recommend going through the handy checklist below to ensure that your upgrades go smoothly.
1. Back Up Your Website
Backing up your site before making any changes to your site is essential. Whenever something doesn’t go as planned, you can always restore things back to their previous settings.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of 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 a changelog file included with an update listing any new features, improvements, bug 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 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 a theme, track any bugs and check to see if the new theme version doesn’t conflict with any existing plugins or settings before applying 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 configuration settings (e.g. plugins) and test 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 to see if anyone has reported any serious problems 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 premium themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Use Child Themes For Heavily Customized WordPress Themes
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 the parent theme. When you update the “parent theme”, all 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 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 very easy. What can feel slightly bothersome is the precautionary work involved prior to upgrading.
Some people don’t upgrade their WordPress 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 “best practice” methods for ensuring problem-free upgrades. Ultimately, as a website owner, it is your responsibility to protect your digital properties.
How To Upgrade A Theme In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Upgrading your themes from your dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on the theme(s) you have installed on your site, you may receive an occasional alert in your WordPress Dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating a theme from the dashboard is quite a simple process. You can update your theme via the “Themes” area, or the “Updates” page.
Updating Your Site Themes From The “Themes” Section
You can see which themes require updating by going to your Themes area.
Select Appearance > Themes from your WP admin menu …
This opens up the “Themes” screen …
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” notice.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress automatically updates the theme …
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 below to bulk upgrade multiple themes.
Updating Your Site’s Theme Via The “Updates” Area
Update your theme via the “Updates” section 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 upgrade process …
WordPress will automatically update all of your selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your theme from your admin dashboard.
***
"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya