If you are new to WordPress, make sure to read our overview of WordPress themes. It explains what WordPress themes are and how they can save online business owners time and money.
In this step-by-step tutorial, you will learn how to easily update your theme in the admin area.
Updating Themes – Best Practices Checklist
Before updating your themes, we recommend going through the handy checklist below to help prevent any problems occuring during the process.
1. Back Up Your Site Fully
Backing up your website before making any changes to your site is essential. Whenever something doesn’t go as planned, you can always restore your website 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. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here:
2. Check The Changelog
Changes made to the WordPress software can affect the functionality of certain themes. Depending on the theme you have installed, there may be a changelog file 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, it’s best to 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 a theme, track bugs and make sure that the new theme version doesn’t conflict with any existing plugins or settings before installing and activating it on a live site.
If you’re managing your own website, you can install a test WordPress site on a subdomain or a separate domain using 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 search online and see if other theme users have 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 premium themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Is Your WordPress Theme Heavily 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 are 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 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! The bit of the upgrading process that takes the most time and effort to complete is the preparation involved prior to upgrading.
Some people don’t upgrade their themes regularly, while others upgrade without going through 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 online assets.
How To Upgrade Your WordPress Theme – Tutorial
Updating your theme from your dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress administration area …
Depending on the theme(s) you have installed on your site, you may receive occasional alerts in your dashboard that your theme(s) need updating …
Updating WordPress themes in your dashboard is a simple process. You can update your themes from the “Themes” page, or the “Updates” feature.
Updating WordPress Themes Using The “Themes” Section
To see which themes need to be updated, 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 you want to update and click on the “Update Available” notice.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress automatically updates the theme in seconds …
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 upgrade multiple themes.
Updating WordPress Themes Via The “Updates” Area
Update your theme from the “Updates” area as follows:
To view all themes installed in your site that need updating, click on Dashboard > Updates …
This brings 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 your selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade your themes in your admin dashboard.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum