If you are new to WordPress, make sure to read our overview of WordPress themes. This in-depth article 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 WP themes with just a few clicks inside your dashboard.
Updating WP Themes – Best Practices Checklist
Before updating any themes, we recommend going through the checklist below to prevent any problems that may affect your site during the process.
1. Back Up Your Website Fully
Backing up your site before making any updates to your site is vital. Whenever something doesn’t go as planned, you can always restore.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many free and paid plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here:
2. Check The Changelog
Changes made to the WordPress software can affect the functionality of certain themes. Depending on the theme you have installed, there may be a changelog file 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, it’s best to upgrade.
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 if all plugins are working fine with the new theme before applying it to a live site.
If you’re managing your own website, you can install a test WordPress site on a subdomain or a separate domain name 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 to see if anyone has 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 Themes
If you have made extensive customizations to your existing WordPress theme files, updating 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”, your customizations get 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 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 bit that takes the most time and effort to complete is the precautionary work involved prior to upgrading.
Many people don’t upgrade their WordPress themes regularly, while many upgrade without going through all of the steps listed in the section above. As mentioned earlier, the above are “best practice” methods to help you avoid problems. Ultimately, as a website owner, it is your responsibility to protect your online properties.
Updating Your Themes – Tutorial
Upgrading your theme from your dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on the theme(s) installed on your website, 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 easy. You can update your theme using the “Themes” page, or the “Updates” page.
Updating WordPress Themes Using The “Themes” Area
You can see which themes require updating by going to your Themes page.
Choose Appearance > Themes in your WP admin menu …
This brings you to the “Themes” page …
Themes that need updating display an “Update Available” message over the theme’s 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 will automatically update your theme in seconds …
Your WordPress theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the process described above to update all of your outdated themes, or use the method described below to upgrade multiple themes at once.
Updating Your Site Themes From The “Updates” Screen
Update your WordPress theme from the “Updates” page as shown below:
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 upgrade your themes in the WP dashboard.
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