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 be cost-effective and time-saving for small business website owners.
This tutorial will show you how to easily update your theme in your dashboard.
Upgrading Themes – Best Practices Checklist
Before updating any WordPress themes, we recommend going through the handy checklist below.
1. Back Up Everything
Backing up your website before making any changes to your site is essential. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here:
2. Check The Changelog
Changes made to the WordPress software can affect the functionality of certain themes. Depending on the theme you are using, there may be some release notes accompanying an update which provides an overview of any new features, improvements, bug 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 the theme, track bugs and verify that all plugins are working fine with the new theme 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 with the same configuration settings (e.g. plugins) and play with the new theme versions on your test site before applying it to your main website.
4. Search Online
Before updating your theme, it’s a good idea to search online and 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 offer this for paid WordPress 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 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”, all customizations get preserved through the “child theme.”
If you plan to customize your theme files, then we recommend becoming familiar with 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 fairly easy. What can feel slightly bothersome is the preparation involved prior to upgrading.
Some 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 recommended “best practice” methods for ensuring problem-free upgrades. Ultimately, it is solely the website owner’s responsibility to protect their digital properties.
Updating Your WP Theme – Tutorial
Upgrading your WordPress theme in the WP dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on which theme(s) are installed on your website, you may receive occasional alerts in your WP Dashboard that your theme(s) need updating …
Updating WordPress themes in your dashboard is easy. You can update your site’s theme from the “Themes” screen, or the “Updates” area.
Updating WordPress Themes Using The “Themes” Area
To see which themes need updating, go to your Themes area.
Choose Appearance > Themes in your WP dashboard menu …
This opens up 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” message.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress will automatically update the theme …
Your WordPress theme is now updated …
Repeat the above to update all of your remaining themes, or use the method below to update multiple themes at once.
Updating Your Theme Via The “Updates” Page
Update your theme via the “Updates” page as shown below:
To view all themes installed on your website that need updating, click on Dashboard > Updates …
This opens 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 bulk upgrade process …
WordPress will automatically update all of the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your theme from 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