How To Update WordPress Themes

Learn how to easily update WordPress themes inside your dashboard …

Updating Your ThemeIf you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our introduction to WordPress themes. It explains what themes are and how they can save small business website owners time and money.

This tutorial will show you how to upgrade themes to the newest version inside your dashboard.

Upgrading WordPress Themes – Best Practices Checklist

Updating WordPress Themes - Best Practices

Before updating your WordPress themes, we recommend going through the “best practices” checklist below to help prevent any problems that may affect your site during the upgrade process.

1. Back Up Your Site Fully

Backing up your files and data before making any updates to your site is essential. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore everything to its previous settings.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are a number of plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process here:

2. Check The Theme Update Notes

Changes made to the WordPress software can affect the functionality of certain themes. Depending on the theme you have installed, there may be some release notes accompanying an update listing new features, improvements, bug fixes or important changes in 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.

Practical Tip

Typically, web service providers will set up a test site where they can test the latest version of an installed theme, track bugs and check if 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 install a test WordPress site on a subdomain or a separate domain with 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 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 offer this for premium WordPress themes, and even for some free plugins).

5. Use Child Themes For Heavily Customized Themes

If you have made extensive customizations to your existing 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 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 the use of 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:

Useful Tip

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! What can feel slightly bothersome is the preparation involved prior to upgrading.

Some people don’t upgrade their themes regularly, while many upgrade without going through some or all of the steps listed in the section above. As mentioned earlier, the above are “best practice” methods for ensuring problem-free upgrades. Ultimately, as a website owner, it is solely your responsibility to protect your digital assets.

Upgrading Your Themes – Step-By-Step Tutorial

Upgrading your theme in your admin dashboard is simple.

Log into your WordPress admin area …

Theme Management: How To Upgrade Themes In WordPress

Depending on what theme(s) you have installed on your website, you may receive occasional alerts in your WordPress Dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …

Updating WordPress Theme From Your Admin Dashboard

Updating a WordPress theme from the dashboard is easy. You can update your WordPress theme via the “Themes” area, or the “Updates” screen.

Updating Your Site Themes Using The “Themes” Page

To see which themes need updating, go to your Themes area.

Choose Appearance > Themes in your WP admin menu …

Theme Management: How To Update A Theme In WordPress

This brings you to the “Themes” screen …

Upgrading Your Theme

WordPress Themes with new versions display an “Update Available” message over the theme’s thumbnail image …

WordPress Theme Management: Updating Your Theme

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

Upgrading Your Themes

WordPress will automatically update your theme …

WordPress Theme Management: Upgrading WP Themes In The WP Dashboard

Your theme is now up-to-date …

Updating Your Themes

Repeat the above process to update all of your out-of-date themes, or use the method described below to upgrade multiple themes at once.

Updating Your Themes Using The “Updates” Section

Update your theme via the “Updates” screen as shown below:

To view all themes installed in your website that need updating, click on Dashboard > Updates

Upgrading Your Theme

This brings up the Updates screen. Scroll down to the Themes section …

Updating Your WP Themes

Select all the themes you want to update and click on Update Themes to complete the update process …

Updating Your Themes

WordPress will automatically update all of the selected themes …

Upgrading Your Themes

Congratulations! Now you know how to update your theme from the WP dashboard.

***

"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group

Originally published as How To Update WordPress Themes.