If you are new to WordPress, make sure to read our overview of WordPress themes. The in-depth article explains what WordPress themes are and how using themes can save small business website owners significant time and money.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to easily update a theme to its latest version inside your admin area.
Upgrading Themes – Best Practices Checklist
Before updating your themes, we recommend going through the checklist below.
1. Back Up Your Site Fully
Backing up your website before making any changes to your site is vital. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many 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 a changelog file included with an update listing new features, improvements, bug fixes or any other 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 any bugs and check if the new theme version doesn’t conflict with any existing plugins or settings before applying it to 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 name using the same configuration settings (e.g. plugins) and test new theme versions on your test site before applying it to your main site.
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 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 paid themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Is Your WordPress Theme Customized? Use A Child Theme
If you have made extensive customizations to your existing theme files, upgrading 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”, all modifications 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 WordPress Codex child theme page here:
As you will see below, the actual process of updating a WordPress theme is fairly simple. The step in the update 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 others 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 to help you avoid problems. Ultimately, as a website owner, it is your responsibility to protect your online assets.
Updating Themes In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Upgrading your themes in your dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress administration area …
Depending on the theme(s) you have installed on your site, you may receive an occasional alert in your WordPress Dashboard that your theme(s) need updating …
Updating themes from your dashboard is easy. You can update your WordPress themes from the “Themes” area, or the “Updates” section.
Updating Your Site Themes Using The “Themes” Page
You can see which themes need to be updated by going to your Themes page.
Choose Appearance > Themes from your WordPress dashboard menu …
This brings you to the “Themes” page …
Themes that need updating display an “Update Available” message over their 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 will automatically update your theme in seconds …
Your theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the above to update all of your remaining themes, or use the method below to bulk upgrade multiple themes.
Updating WordPress Themes Via The “Updates” Screen
Update your themes from the “Updates” area as follows:
To view all themes on 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 upgrade process …
WordPress automatically updates all of the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade your theme in your dashboard.
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