If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our introduction to WordPress themes. It explains what WordPress themes are and how themes can save small business website owners significant time and money.
This tutorial will show you how to upgrade your theme in the admin area.
Updating Themes – Best Practices
Before updating your WordPress themes, we recommend going through the “best practices” 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.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many WordPress 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 are using, there may be a changelog file included with an update listing new features, improvements, bug fixes or any other information pertaining to the new version.
If the theme changes seem irrelevant or unimportant, you can skip the update. Otherwise, it’s best to 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 any bugs and check to see if all plugins are working fine with the new theme before applying and activating 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 plugins and configuration settings 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 to 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 paid WordPress themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Is Your WordPress Theme Customized? Use A Child Theme
If you have made extensive customizations to your existing WordPress 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 the parent theme. When you update the “parent theme”, all customizations get preserved through the “child theme.”
If you plan to customize your theme files, then we recommend becoming familiar with the use of 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 WordPress Codex child theme page here:
As you will see below, the actual process of updating a WordPress theme is very easy. The step in the upgrade process that takes the most time and effort to complete is the preparation involved prior to upgrading.
Many people don’t upgrade their WordPress 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 “best practice” methods to help you avoid problems. Ultimately, it is solely the website owner’s responsibility to protect their online assets.
How To Upgrade A Theme In WordPress – Tutorial
Upgrading your WP themes in your dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on the theme(s) you have installed on your site, you may receive occasional alerts in your dashboard that your theme(s) need updating …
Updating a theme from the dashboard is easy. You can update your site’s theme from the “Themes” area, or the “Updates” page.
Updating WordPress Themes From The “Themes” Screen
You can see which themes need to be updated by going to your Themes page.
Choose Appearance > Themes from your WordPress admin menu …
This opens up the “Themes” screen …
WordPress Themes that need updating display an “Update Available” message over their thumbnail image …
Locate the theme that needs to be updated and click on the “Update Available” alert.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress will automatically update the theme …
Your theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the process described above to update all of your out-of-date themes, or use the method described below to bulk update multiple themes at once.
Updating WordPress Themes Via The “Updates” Screen
Update your theme from the “Updates” section as follows:
To view all themes installed 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 automatically updates all of the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade your theme from the WP dashboard.
***
"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya