If 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
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.
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:
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 …
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 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 …
This brings you to the “Themes” screen …
WordPress Themes with new versions 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 will automatically update your theme …
Your theme is now up-to-date …
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 …
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 update 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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"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