If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our introduction to WordPress themes. We’ve written a detailed article that explains what WordPress themes are and how using themes can save business website owners time and money.
This tutorial will show you how to upgrade your themes in the dashboard.
Upgrading Themes – Best Practices
Before updating any WordPress themes, we recommend going through the handy checklist below.
1. Back Up Your Site Fully
Backing up your website before making any updates to your site is essential. 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 plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully 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 are using, there may be some release notes included with an update listing any new features, improvements, security 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 update.
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 an installed 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 manage your own website, you can set up a test WordPress site on a subdomain or a separate domain name with the same configuration settings (e.g. plugins) 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 search online to 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 premium 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 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 fairly easy. What can feel slightly bothersome is the preparation involved prior to upgrading.
Some people don’t upgrade their themes regularly, while others 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 for ensuring problem-free upgrades. Ultimately, it is solely the website owner’s responsibility to protect their digital properties.
Updating Your WordPress Themes – Tutorial
Upgrading your WP themes from your dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on the theme(s) installed on your site, you may receive occasional alerts in your WordPress Dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating themes from your dashboard is a very simple process. You can update your site’s theme using the “Themes” section, or the “Updates” section.
Updating Your Theme From The “Themes” Screen
You can see which themes require updating by going to your Themes page.
Choose Appearance > Themes in your WP dashboard menu …
This brings you to 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” message.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress automatically updates the theme in seconds …
Your WordPress theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the above process to update all of your remaining themes, or use the method described below to upgrade multiple themes at once.
Updating WordPress Themes Using The “Updates” Section
Update your themes from the “Updates” area as follows:
To view all themes on your site that require 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 update process …
WordPress will automatically update all of your selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your themes in your dashboard.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)