If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our overview of WordPress themes. It explains what WP themes are and how using themes can save online business owners significant time and money.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to update your WP theme in your admin area.
Updating Themes – Best Practices Checklist
Before updating your themes, we recommend going through the checklist below to ensure that your update goes smoothly.
1. Back Up Everything
Backing up your site 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 previous settings.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many free and paid plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can 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 have installed, there may be some release notes included with an update which provides an overview of new features, improvements, security 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 verify that 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 set up a test WordPress site on a subdomain or a separate domain with the same plugins and configuration settings and test 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 to see if anyone has 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, 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 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 visit the official WordPress 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! What can feel slightly bothersome is the precautionary work 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 for ensuring problem-free upgrades. Ultimately, as a website owner, it is your responsibility to protect your digital properties.
Upgrading Your Theme – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Upgrading your themes in the WP dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on the theme(s) installed on your site, you may receive occasional notifications in your WP Dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating a theme in the WP dashboard is quite simple and easy. You can update your themes using the “Themes” page, or the “Updates” page.
Updating Your Themes From The “Themes” Page
You can see which themes require updating by going to your Themes area.
Select Appearance > Themes in 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 that needs to be updated and click on the “Update Available” notice.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress automatically updates the theme …
Your theme is now updated …
Repeat the above to update all of your outdated themes, or use the method described below to bulk update multiple themes.
Updating Your Theme Via The “Updates” Area
Update your theme from the “Updates” page 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 …
Check the box next to 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 in your dashboard.
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