If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our introduction to WordPress themes. We’ve written an in-depth article that explains what themes are and how themes can save small business owners time and money.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to update a theme with just a few clicks inside the dashboard.
Updating Your WordPress Theme – Best Practices
Before updating any WordPress themes, we recommend going through the “best practices” checklist below to prevent any problems affecting your site during the upgrade process.
1. Back Up Your Site
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 plugins you can use. You can read about a WordPress backup plugin that can 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 are using, there may be some release notes accompanying an update listing new features, improvements, security fixes or important information pertaining to the new theme version.
If the theme changes seem irrelevant or unimportant, you can skip the update. Otherwise, you should update.
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 the new theme version doesn’t conflict with any existing plugins or settings 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 using the same configuration settings (e.g. plugins) and play with the new theme versions on your test site before applying it to your main site.
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 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 provide forums 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 theme files, updating your theme may 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 that 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 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 bit of the update 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 others 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, it is solely the website owner’s responsibility to protect their online assets.
Upgrading Your Theme – Tutorial
Updating your WP theme from your admin dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on the theme(s) you have installed on your website, you may receive an occasional notification in your dashboard that your theme(s) need updating …
Updating WordPress themes in your dashboard is simple and easy. You can update your WordPress themes using the “Themes” page, or the “Updates” screen.
Updating Your Site Themes From The “Themes” Area
To see which themes require updating, go to your Themes area.
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” notice.
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 upgrade multiple themes.
Updating WordPress Themes Using The “Updates” Page
Update your theme using the “Updates” page as follows:
To view all themes on your website that need updating, click on Dashboard > Updates …
This brings 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 the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your theme from your admin dashboard.
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