If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our introduction to WordPress themes. We’ve written a detailed article that explains what WordPress themes are and how using a theme can be cost-effective and time-saving for business website owners.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to upgrade your theme in your dashboard.
Upgrading A WordPress Theme – Best Practices
Before updating your WordPress themes, we recommend going through the checklist below to prevent any problems occuring during the process.
1. Back Up Everything
Backing up your website 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 a number of plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups 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 any new features, improvements, security fixes or important changes in the new theme version.
If the changes seem irrelevant or unimportant, you can skip the update. Otherwise, you should 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 make sure that 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 using the same configuration settings (e.g. plugins) and play with the new theme versions on your test site before applying it to your live site.
4. Search Online
Before updating your theme, it’s a good idea to search online to see if anyone has reported any serious problems 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 offer this for paid WordPress themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Is Your WordPress Theme Heavily Customized? Use A Child Theme
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 child themes, especially if you use a theme that gets regularly updated. You can learn more about child themes by searching online, or just visit the WordPress Codex child theme page here:
As you will see below, the actual process of updating a WordPress theme is simple. The step 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 others upgrade without going through some or all of the steps listed in the section above. As mentioned earlier, the above are recommended “best practice” methods to help you avoid problems. Ultimately, as a website owner, it is your responsibility to protect your digital assets.
Upgrading Themes In WordPress – Tutorial
Updating your WordPress themes from the WP dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress administration area …
Depending on the theme(s) you have installed on your website, you may receive an occasional alert in your dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating a theme from your WP dashboard is a very simple process. You can update your theme from the “Themes” area, or the “Updates” area.
Updating WordPress Themes Via The “Themes” Area
To see which themes require updating, go to your Themes area.
Select Appearance > Themes in your WordPress 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 you want to update and click on the “Update Available” notice.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress automatically updates the theme …
Your theme is now updated …
Repeat the above to update all of your remaining themes, or use the method below to update multiple themes.
Updating Your Theme Using The “Updates” Page
Update your WordPress themes using the “Updates” section as follows:
To view all themes in your site that require updating, click on Dashboard > Updates …
This opens up the Updates screen. Scroll down to the Themes section …
Check the box next to 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 upgrade your theme from the WP dashboard.
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