If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our overview of WordPress themes. We’ve written an in-depth article that explains what WP themes are and how themes can be cost-effective and time-saving for website owners.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to update themes in the admin area.
Updating A WordPress Theme – Best Practices
Before updating any themes, we recommend going through the checklist below.
1. Back Up Your Site Fully
Backing up your website before making any updates to your site is vital. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore things back to their previous settings.
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 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 have installed, there may be some release notes accompanying an update listing new features, improvements, bug fixes or any other information pertaining to the new version.
If the changes seem irrelevant or unimportant, you can skip the update. Otherwise, you should upgrade.
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 a theme, track bugs and verify that all plugins are working fine with the new theme before installing and activating it on a live site.
If you’re managing your own website, you can set up 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 website.
4. Search Online
Before updating your theme, it’s a good idea to search online and see if other theme users have 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 provide forums for paid 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”, all modifications get preserved through the “child theme.”
If you plan to customize your theme files, then we recommend becoming familiar with child themes, especially if you plan on using 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 very 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 themes regularly, while many upgrade without going through all of the steps listed in the section above. As mentioned earlier, the above are recommended “best practice” methods for ensuring problem-free upgrades. Ultimately, it is solely the website owner’s responsibility to protect their online assets.
Updating Themes In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Updating your WP theme in your dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress administration area …
Depending on the theme(s) installed on your website, you may receive occasional notifications in your WP Dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating WordPress themes from the WP dashboard is easy. You can update your WordPress theme from the “Themes” feature, or the “Updates” section.
Updating Your Themes From The “Themes” Page
To see which themes require updating, go to your Themes page.
Select Appearance > Themes in your WordPress dashboard menu …
This brings you to the “Themes” page …
WordPress 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” message.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress automatically updates your theme …
Your theme is now updated …
Repeat the above process to update all of your outdated themes, or use the method below to bulk update multiple themes.
Updating Your Theme Using The “Updates” Page
Update your themes via the “Updates” screen as shown below:
To view all themes on your site that need 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 bulk upgrade process …
WordPress automatically updates all of your selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your themes from your dashboard.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum