If you are new to WordPress, make sure to read our overview of WordPress themes. We’ve written a comprehensive article that explains what WP themes are and how themes can be cost-effective and time-saving for website owners.
This step-by-step tutorial will show you how to easily upgrade your theme with just a few clicks inside your dashboard.
Updating WP Themes – Best Practices
We recommend going through the checklist below before going through the upgrade process.
1. Back Up Your Website Fully
Backing up your site 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 many free and paid WordPress plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can fully automate your site backups 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 listing new features, improvements, security fixes or any other changes in the new theme version.
If the theme 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 the theme, track bugs and check to see if the new theme version doesn’t conflict with any existing plugins or settings before applying and activating it on a live site.
If you manage your own website, you can set up 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 do a quick search online and see if anyone has reported any issues 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 themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Is Your Theme Heavily 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 that 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 on using 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 easy. What can feel slightly bothersome 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 for ensuring problem-free upgrades. Ultimately, as a website owner, it is your responsibility to protect your online assets.
Updating WP Theme In Your Dashboard – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Upgrading your WordPress theme from the WP dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on the theme(s) installed on your website, you may receive occasional notifications in your dashboard that your theme(s) need updating …
Updating WordPress themes from your dashboard is very simple and easy. You can update your WordPress themes from the “Themes” feature, or the “Updates” feature.
Updating WordPress Themes Using The “Themes” Section
To see which themes need updating, go to your Themes page.
Choose Appearance > Themes in your WP dashboard menu …
This brings you to the “Themes” page …
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” notice.
When the theme details window opens up, click on update now …
WordPress will automatically update the theme in seconds …
Your theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the above process to update all of your remaining themes, or use the method described below to bulk upgrade multiple themes.
Updating Your Site Themes Using The “Updates” Section
Update your WordPress themes using the “Updates” area as shown below:
To view all themes on your site that need updating, click on Dashboard > Updates …
This opens 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 update process …
WordPress will automatically update all of the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your themes from the WP dashboard.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)