If you are new to WordPress, make sure to read our introduction to WordPress themes. It explains what WordPress themes are and how they can save business website owners significant time and money.
This tutorial will show you how to upgrade your theme in your admin area.
Upgrading WP Themes – Best Practices
Before updating your themes, we recommend going through the “best practices” checklist below.
1. Back Up Everything
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 state.
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 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 a changelog file included with an update listing any new features, improvements, security fixes or any other changes in the new version.
If the theme 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 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 configuration settings (e.g. plugins) and play with the new theme versions on your test site before applying it to your live website.
4. Search Online
Before updating your theme, it’s a good idea to do a quick search online to 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 offer this for premium themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Use Child Themes For Heavily Customized Themes
If you have made extensive changes 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 that parent theme. When you update the “parent theme”, your modifications are preserved through the “child theme.”
If you plan to customize your theme files, then we recommend becoming familiar with 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 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 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, as a website owner, it is solely your responsibility to protect your online properties.
Upgrading A Theme In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Upgrading your themes from your dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on the theme(s) installed on your site, you may receive occasional alerts in your dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating a theme from your dashboard is simple and easy. You can update your WordPress theme from the “Themes” screen, or the “Updates” page.
Updating Your Site Themes Using The “Themes” Area
You can see which themes require updating by going to your Themes area.
Select Appearance > Themes from your WordPress admin menu …
This brings you to the “Themes” page …
Themes that need updating display an “Update Available” message over the theme’s 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 WordPress theme is now updated …
Repeat the above to update all of your out-of-date themes, or use the method described below to bulk update multiple themes.
Updating Your Site Themes Via The “Updates” Section
Update your themes from the “Updates” area as shown below:
To view all themes installed in your website that require updating, click on Dashboard > Updates …
This brings 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 update process …
WordPress will automatically update all of the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your theme in the WP dashboard.
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