If you are new to WordPress, make sure to read our introduction to WordPress themes. It explains what themes are and how using themes can save web business owners significant time and money.
This tutorial will show you how to easily upgrade your theme with just a few clicks inside your admin area.
Upgrading A WordPress Theme – Best Practices Checklist
Before updating any themes, we recommend going through the handy checklist below to help prevent any problems occuring during the upgrade process.
1. Make A Full Site Backup
Backing up your files and data before making any changes to your site is vital. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore your site to its former state.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your backup process 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 are using, there may be a changelog file included with an update which provides an overview of new features, improvements, bug fixes or any other information pertaining to the new version.
If the theme changes seem irrelevant or unimportant, you can skip the update. Otherwise, it’s best to update.
3. Test The 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 any bugs and check to see if all plugins are working fine with the new theme before installing 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 with the same plugins and configuration settings and play with the new theme versions on your test site before applying it to your live website.
4. Search Online
Before updating your theme, it’s a good idea to do a quick search online and 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 paid WordPress themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Use Child Themes For Heavily Customized WordPress 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 the parent theme. When you update the “parent theme”, your customizations 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 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 fairly simple. The part that takes the most time and effort to complete is the precautionary work involved prior to upgrading.
Some people don’t upgrade their WordPress themes regularly, while others upgrade without going through some or all of the steps listed in the section above. As mentioned earlier, the above are “best practice” methods to help you avoid problems. Ultimately, it is solely your responsibility as a website owner to protect your online assets.
How To Upgrade A Theme In WordPress – Tutorial
Updating your theme from the WP dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on the theme(s) you have installed on your site, you may receive an occasional notification in your WordPress Dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating a WordPress theme from the dashboard is quite a simple process. You can update your site’s theme using the “Themes” screen, or the “Updates” page.
Updating WordPress Themes From The “Themes” Area
You can see which themes need updating by going to your Themes page.
Choose Appearance > Themes from your WP dashboard menu …
This brings you to the “Themes” page …
WordPress Themes with new versions display an “Update Available” message over the theme’s thumbnail image …
Locate the theme you want to update and click on the “Update Available” alert.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress automatically updates your theme in seconds …
Your WordPress theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the process described above to update all of your remaining themes, or use the method below to bulk update multiple themes at once.
Updating WordPress Themes From The “Updates” Area
Update your WordPress themes using the “Updates” page as shown below:
To view all themes on your site 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 bulk update process …
WordPress will automatically update all of the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your WordPress themes in the WP dashboard.
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