If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our overview of WordPress themes. We’ve written a detailed article that explains what themes are and how using themes can save business owners significant time and money.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to upgrade your themes with just a few clicks inside your dashboard.
Upgrading Your WordPress Theme – Best Practices
We recommend going through the “best practices” checklist below before going through the upgrade process, to make sure that your update goes smoothly.
1. Back Up Everything
Backing up your files and data 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 a number of WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups here:
2. Check The Changelog
Changes made to the WordPress software can affect the functionality of certain themes. Depending on the theme you are using, there may be some release notes included with an update which provides an overview of 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 a theme, track 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 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 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 themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Use Child Themes For Heavily Customized Themes
If you have made extensive customizations to your existing WordPress 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 WordPress Codex 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 in this process 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 many upgrade without going through 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 your responsibility to protect your online assets.
Upgrading Your Theme – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Upgrading your WordPress themes in the WP dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress administration area …
Depending on what theme(s) are installed on your site, you may receive occasional notifications in your dashboard that your theme(s) need updating …
Updating WordPress themes in the WP dashboard is easy. You can update your theme using the “Themes” feature, or the “Updates” area.
Updating Your Site’s Theme Via The “Themes” Area
You can see which themes need to be updated by going to your Themes page.
Choose Appearance > Themes from your WP dashboard menu …
This opens up the “Themes” screen …
WordPress Themes that need updating 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 …
Your WordPress theme is now updated …
Repeat the above process to update all of your out-of-date themes, or use the method below to bulk upgrade multiple themes.
Updating WordPress Themes Using The “Updates” Screen
Update your WordPress themes using the “Updates” area as shown below:
To view all themes in your website that need 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 themes in your 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