If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our overview of WordPress themes. We’ve written an in-depth article that explains what themes are and how using themes can be cost-effective and time-saving for website owners.
This tutorial will show you how to update a theme in your admin area.
Upgrading Your WordPress Theme – Best Practices
We recommend going through the checklist below before attempting the upgrade process.
1. Back Up Your Site Fully
Backing up your website before making any changes to your site is vital. Whenever something doesn’t go as planned, you can always restore everything to its previous configuration.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. You can read 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 have installed, there may be a changelog file accompanying an update listing 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 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 an installed theme, track bugs and verify that all plugins are working fine with the new theme 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 name with the same configuration settings (e.g. plugins) and test new theme versions on your test site before applying it to your live site.
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 WordPress 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 modifications are 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 official WordPress child theme page here:
As you will see below, the actual process of updating a WordPress theme is very easy. The step that takes the most time and effort to complete is the precautionary work involved prior to upgrading.
Some people don’t upgrade their WordPress themes regularly, while others upgrade without going through some or all of the steps listed in the section above. As mentioned earlier, the above are “best practice” methods for ensuring problem-free upgrades. Ultimately, as a website owner, it is solely your responsibility to protect your digital properties.
Upgrading WP Themes From Your Admin Dashboard – Tutorial
Updating your theme from your admin dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress administration area …
Depending on what theme(s) you have installed on your website, you may receive occasional alerts in your WordPress Dashboard that your theme(s) need updating …
Updating WordPress themes in the dashboard is quite simple and easy. You can update your site’s theme using the “Themes” feature, or the “Updates” area.
Updating WordPress Themes From The “Themes” Area
You can see which themes need updating by going to your Themes area.
Choose Appearance > Themes from your WP dashboard menu …
This opens up 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 up-to-date …
Repeat the above process to update all of your outdated themes, or use the method below to bulk upgrade multiple themes at once.
Updating Your Themes Using The “Updates” Area
Update your WordPress theme using the “Updates” section as follows:
To view all themes installed in your website 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 bulk update process …
WordPress automatically updates all of the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade your WordPress theme in the WP dashboard.
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