If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our overview of WordPress themes. It explains what WP themes are and how using a theme can be cost-effective and time-saving for business website owners.
This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to easily update your theme in the admin area.
Upgrading WordPress Themes – Best Practices Checklist
Before updating your themes, we recommend going through the “best practices” checklist below to make sure that no settings or customizations are lost and your update goes smoothly.
1. Make A Backup
Backing up your website before making any updates to your site is essential. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore your website to its former state.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many 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
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 listing new features, improvements, bug fixes or important changes in the new version.
If the changes seem irrelevant or unimportant, you can skip the update. Otherwise, you should 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 bugs and check to see if all plugins are working fine with the new theme before applying and activating it on a live site.
If you’re managing 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 main website.
4. Search Online
Before updating your theme, it’s a good idea to do a quick search online to see if other theme users have 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 provide forums for paid themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Use Child Themes For Heavily Customized Themes
If you have made extensive customizations 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”, all 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 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 very easy. The bit that takes the most time and effort to complete is the preparation involved prior to upgrading.
Many 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 recommended “best practice” methods to help you avoid problems. Ultimately, as a website owner, it is your responsibility to protect your digital assets.
Upgrading Your Theme – Tutorial
Updating your WordPress theme in your dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress administration area …
Depending on which theme(s) you have installed on your website, you may receive an occasional notification in your WordPress Dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating a theme in your WP dashboard is very simple and easy. You can update your theme via the “Themes” page, or the “Updates” page.
Updating WordPress Themes From The “Themes” Section
You can see which themes need to be updated by going 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 the theme’s 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 your theme in seconds …
Your theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the above to update all of your outdated themes, or use the method below to bulk update multiple themes at once.
Updating WordPress Themes Via The “Updates” Area
Update your themes using the “Updates” screen as follows:
To view all themes in 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 update process …
WordPress automatically updates all of your selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade your WordPress theme from your dashboard.
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