If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our overview of WordPress themes. The detailed article explains what themes are and how using themes can save business website owners significant time and money.
This tutorial will show you how to update your themes with just a few clicks inside your admin area.
Updating Your WordPress Theme – Best Practices Checklist
Before updating any WordPress themes, we recommend going through the “best practices” checklist below.
1. Back Up Your Website Fully
Backing up your files and data before making any updates to your site is vital. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore everything to its former configuration.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of WordPress plugins you can use. You can read 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 accompanying an update listing new features, improvements, bug fixes or important information pertaining to the new version.
If the theme 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 a theme, track bugs and check to see if the new theme version doesn’t conflict with any existing plugins or settings 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 search online and see if anyone has reported any serious problems 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 WordPress themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Is Your Theme Customized? Use A Child Theme
If you have made extensive customizations to your existing theme files, updating 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 the parent theme. When you update the “parent theme”, your modifications get preserved through the “child theme.”
If you plan to customize your theme files, then we recommend becoming familiar with the use of 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 not complicated at all … a few simple clicks and you’re done! The part of this process 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 for ensuring problem-free upgrades. Ultimately, it is the website owner’s responsibility to protect their online properties.
Upgrading Your WP Theme – Tutorial
Upgrading your themes from the WP dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on which theme(s) are installed on your site, you may receive an occasional notification in your dashboard that your theme(s) need updating …
Updating a theme from your WP dashboard is easy. You can update your theme from the “Themes” screen, or the “Updates” feature.
Updating WordPress Themes Via The “Themes” Screen
To see which themes require updating, go to your Themes area.
Choose Appearance > Themes in your WordPress dashboard menu …
This brings you to the “Themes” screen …
WordPress 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 automatically updates your theme …
Your WordPress theme is now updated …
Repeat the above to update all of your out-of-date themes, or use the method below to bulk upgrade multiple themes at once.
Updating Your Site Themes Using The “Updates” Screen
Update your WordPress themes via the “Updates” screen as shown below:
To view all themes on your website 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 bulk update process …
WordPress will automatically update all of your selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your themes from your dashboard.
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