If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our overview of WordPress themes. The comprehensive article explains what WordPress themes are and how they can save small business owners significant time and money.
This tutorial will show you how to easily update your themes in the dashboard.
Upgrading WordPress Themes – Best Practices
Before updating any WordPress themes, we recommend going through the checklist below.
1. Make A Full Site Backup
Backing up your site before making any updates to your site is essential. Whenever something doesn’t go as planned, you can always restore things back to their previous configuration.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of plugins you can use. Learn 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 some release notes accompanying an update listing any new features, improvements, security fixes or important changes in the new version.
If the theme changes seem irrelevant or unimportant, you can skip the update. Otherwise, you should 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 a theme, track any bugs and check 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 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 other theme users have 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 provide forums 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 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 that 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 using 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 official WordPress child theme page here:
As you will see below, the actual process of updating a WordPress theme is very simple. What can feel slightly bothersome is the precautionary work involved prior to upgrading.
Some people don’t upgrade their themes regularly, while many upgrade without going through 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 assets.
Upgrading A Theme In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Upgrading your themes from the WP dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on the theme(s) installed on your website, you may receive occasional notifications in your WordPress Dashboard that your theme(s) need updating …
Updating a theme from the WP dashboard is easy. You can update your site’s theme using the “Themes” page, or the “Updates” section.
Updating WordPress Themes From The “Themes” Page
To see which themes require updating, go to your Themes page.
Choose Appearance > Themes from your WordPress dashboard menu …
This opens up the “Themes” page …
WordPress Themes that need updating display an “Update Available” message over the theme’s thumbnail image …
Locate the theme you want to update and click on the “Update Available” alert.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress will automatically update your theme …
Your WordPress theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the above process to update all of your outdated themes, or use the method described below to bulk upgrade multiple themes.
Updating WordPress Themes Via The “Updates” Screen
Update your themes via the “Updates” section as follows:
To view all themes in your site that need 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 update process …
WordPress will automatically update all of your selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your WordPress themes from the WP dashboard.
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