If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our overview of WordPress themes. It explains what themes are and how using themes can save small business owners time and money.
In this tutorial, you will learn how to update your theme inside your admin area.
Upgrading Your WordPress Theme – Best Practices
Before updating any themes, we recommend going through the “best practices” checklist below to help prevent any problems that could affect your site during the process.
1. Make A Full Site Backup
Backing up your site before making any changes to your site is essential. This way, if things don’t go as planned, you can always restore your site to its former settings.
If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many WordPress plugins you can use. Learn 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 have installed, there may be some release notes included with an update which provides an overview of any new features, improvements, bug fixes or any other changes in the new theme version.
If the 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 a theme, track any bugs and verify 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 manage your own website, you can install a test WordPress site on a subdomain or a separate domain name with the same configuration settings (e.g. plugins) and test new theme versions on your test site before applying it to your main website.
4. Search Online
Before updating your theme, it’s a good idea to do a quick 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 provide forums for premium themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Is Your WordPress Theme Heavily Customized? Use A Child Theme
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 the parent theme. When you update the “parent theme”, your modifications get preserved through the “child theme.”
If you plan to customize your theme files, then we recommend becoming familiar with child themes, especially if you plan to 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! What can feel slightly bothersome 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, it is solely the website owner’s responsibility to protect their online assets.
Updating Your WP Themes – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Updating your theme from your dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress administration area …
Depending on the theme(s) you have installed on your website, you may receive occasional alerts in your WordPress Dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating a theme from your dashboard is easy. You can update your WordPress theme from the “Themes” feature, or the “Updates” area.
Updating Your Site Themes Using The “Themes” Screen
To see which themes need updating, go to your Themes page.
Select Appearance > Themes in your WordPress admin menu …
This opens up 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 the theme …
Your WordPress theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the above to update all of your remaining themes, or use the method below to bulk update multiple themes.
Updating Your Theme Using The “Updates” Screen
Update your WordPress theme from the “Updates” page as shown below:
To view all themes 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 your selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your themes in your admin dashboard.
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