If you are new to WordPress, make sure to read our overview of WordPress themes. We’ve written a comprehensive article that explains what themes are and how using a theme can be cost-effective and time-saving for website owners.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to easily upgrade a theme inside your admin area.
Upgrading Your WordPress Theme – Best Practices
Before updating any themes, we recommend going through the “best practices” checklist below to 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 vital. Whenever something doesn’t go as planned, you can always restore your website to its previous configuration.
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 automate your backup process here:
2. Check The Changelog
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 a changelog file included with an update which provides an overview of any new features, improvements, bug fixes or any other changes in the new version.
If the changes seem irrelevant or unimportant, you can skip the update. Otherwise, you should update.
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 any bugs and verify that the new theme version doesn’t conflict with any existing plugins or settings before applying it to a live site.
If you manage your own website, you can set up a test WordPress site on a subdomain or a separate domain with the same plugins and configuration settings 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 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 offer this for paid 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 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”, your modifications are 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 plan to use 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 easy. The part 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 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 properties.
Updating Your WordPress Themes – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Updating your WordPress themes in the WP dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress administration area …
Depending on which theme(s) you have installed on your site, you may receive occasional alerts in your dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating a WordPress theme from your dashboard is quite simple and easy. You can update your themes from the “Themes” section, or the “Updates” screen.
Updating WordPress Themes Via The “Themes” Page
To see which themes need updating, go to your Themes page.
Choose Appearance > Themes from your WordPress dashboard menu …
This brings you to the “Themes” page …
Themes with new versions display an “Update Available” message over their 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 the theme in seconds …
Your theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the above to update all of your remaining themes, or use the method described below to bulk update multiple themes.
Updating Your Themes Using The “Updates” Section
Update your WordPress themes via the “Updates” screen as shown below:
To view all themes installed on your website that require updating, click on Dashboard > Updates …
This opens 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 theme in your dashboard.
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