If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our introduction to WordPress themes. This detailed article explains what WP themes are and how using a theme can be cost-effective and time-saving for business website owners.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to easily update your WordPress theme inside the admin area.
Upgrading Themes – Best Practices Checklist
We recommend going through the handy checklist below before attempting the upgrade process, to reduce any problems happening as a result of your upgrade.
1. Back Up Your Site Fully
Backing up your files and data before making any updates to your site is essential. Whenever something doesn’t go as planned, you can always restore everything to its former state.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of 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
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 some release notes included with an update which provides an overview of any new features, improvements, security fixes or any other changes in the new version.
If the theme changes seem irrelevant or unimportant, you can skip the update. Otherwise, it’s best to 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 bugs and check to see if all plugins are working fine with the new theme before installing it on a live site.
If you manage your own website, you can install a test WordPress site on a subdomain or a separate domain using the same plugins and configuration settings and play with the 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 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 premium WordPress themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Use Child Themes For Heavily Customized Themes
If you have made extensive changes to your existing WordPress 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 that 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 using child themes, especially if you plan on using a theme that gets regularly updated. You can learn more about child themes by searching online, or just visit the official WordPress child theme page here:
As you will see below, the actual process of updating a WordPress theme is very simple. The part of the upgrade process that takes the most time and effort to complete is the precautionary work involved prior to upgrading.
Many people don’t upgrade their 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 to help you avoid problems. Ultimately, as a website owner, it is solely your responsibility to protect your digital properties.
Updating Your Theme – Tutorial
Upgrading your WordPress themes in your dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on the theme(s) you have installed on your site, you may receive occasional notifications in your WP Dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating themes from the dashboard is very simple and easy. You can update your site’s theme from the “Themes” area, or the “Updates” area.
Updating WordPress Themes From The “Themes” Section
You can see which themes need updating by going to your Themes area.
Choose Appearance > Themes from your WordPress admin menu …
This opens up the “Themes” page …
Themes with new versions 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 automatically updates your theme …
Your theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the process described above to update all of your outdated themes, or use the method below to bulk update multiple themes.
Updating WordPress Themes Via The “Updates” Screen
Update your theme via the “Updates” screen as follows:
To view all themes installed in your website 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 your selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your theme in the WP dashboard.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now