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 themes can save website owners significant time and money.
In this step-by-step tutorial, you will learn how to upgrade WP themes in the dashboard.
Upgrading A WordPress Theme – Best Practices
Before updating any themes, we recommend going through the checklist below to help prevent any problems occuring during the process.
1. Back Up Your Site Fully
Backing up your website before making any updates 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 many free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups 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 some release notes accompanying an update listing new features, improvements, security fixes or important changes in the new theme version.
If the theme changes seem irrelevant or unimportant, you can skip the update. Otherwise, it’s best to 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 an installed theme, track bugs and verify that the new theme version doesn’t conflict with any existing plugins or settings before applying and activating it on a live site.
If you manage your own website, you can set up a test WordPress site on a subdomain or a separate domain name using the same configuration settings (e.g. plugins) and test 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 and see if other theme users have 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 offer this for premium WordPress themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Use Child Themes For Heavily Customized WordPress Themes
If you have made extensive changes 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 using 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 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! The step that takes the most time and effort to complete is the preparation involved prior to upgrading.
Some people don’t upgrade their WordPress themes regularly, while others upgrade without going through 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 online assets.
Updating Your WP Theme – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Upgrading your themes in your dashboard is simple.
Log into your WordPress administration area …
Depending on the theme(s) you have installed on your site, you may receive an occasional alert in your dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating themes from your dashboard is easy. You can update your WordPress themes from the “Themes” page, or the “Updates” section.
Updating Your Site Themes Via The “Themes” Screen
To see which themes need updating, go to your Themes area.
Choose Appearance > Themes from your WordPress dashboard menu …
This opens up the “Themes” page …
Themes with new versions display an “Update Available” message over their 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 will automatically update the theme in seconds …
Your theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the process described above to update all of your remaining themes, or use the method described below to update multiple themes at once.
Updating WordPress Themes Via The “Updates” Section
Update your theme via the “Updates” page as shown below:
To view all themes in 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 update process …
WordPress automatically updates all of your selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade your WordPress themes from the WP dashboard.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)