If you are new to WordPress, make sure to read our overview of WordPress themes. It explains what themes are and how using a theme can save business owners time and money.
This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to upgrade a WP theme to its newest version inside your admin area.
Upgrading Themes – Best Practices Checklist
Before updating your themes, we recommend going through the checklist below to help prevent any problems occuring during the process.
1. Back Up Everything
Backing up your site before making any changes to your site is vital. Whenever something doesn’t go as planned, you can always restore.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many 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, bug fixes or any other information pertaining to the new theme version.
If the 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 the theme, track bugs and verify that all plugins are working fine with the new theme before applying and activating it on 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 using the same configuration settings (e.g. plugins) and test 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 to see if anyone has reported any issues with the new theme version.
You can enter 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. Use Child Themes For Heavily Customized WordPress Themes
If you have made extensive changes to your existing theme files, updating 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 customizations 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 WordPress Codex child theme page here:
As you will see below, the actual process of updating a WordPress theme is very easy. What can feel slightly bothersome is the precautionary work involved prior to upgrading.
Some people don’t upgrade their themes regularly, while many upgrade without going through 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 your responsibility to protect your online properties.
Updating Your Themes – Tutorial
Updating your theme from your dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on the theme(s) you have installed on your website, you may receive occasional notifications in your dashboard that your theme(s) need updating …
Updating a theme from the WP dashboard is easy. You can update your themes from the “Themes” feature, or the “Updates” feature.
Updating Your Site Themes From The “Themes” Page
You can see which themes need updating by going to your Themes page.
Select Appearance > Themes in your WP admin menu …
This opens up the “Themes” page …
Themes that need updating 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 your theme in seconds …
Your theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the above process to update all of your remaining themes, or use the method below to bulk upgrade multiple themes.
Updating WordPress Themes Using The “Updates” Page
Update your theme using the “Updates” screen as shown below:
To view all themes installed in your site that require 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 upgrade process …
WordPress will automatically update all of the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your themes from your admin 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