If you are new to WordPress, make sure you read our introduction to WordPress themes. We’ve written a comprehensive article that explains what themes are and how using themes can save online business owners time and money.
In this step-by-step tutorial, you will learn how to update your themes inside your dashboard.
Updating Your WordPress Theme – Best Practices
We recommend going through the “best practices” checklist below before attempting the upgrade process.
1. Make A Full Site Backup
Backing up your website 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 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 have installed, there may be some release notes accompanying an update which provides an overview of 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 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 any bugs and make sure that all plugins are working fine with the new theme before applying it to a live site.
If you’re managing your own website, you can install a test WordPress site on a subdomain or a separate domain with the same plugins and configuration settings and play with the 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 and 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 themes, and even for some free plugins).
5. Use Child Themes For Heavily Customized WordPress Themes
If you have made extensive changes 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 the use of 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 visit the WordPress Codex 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 recommended “best practice” methods to help you avoid problems. Ultimately, as a website owner, it is your responsibility to protect your online assets.
Updating Your Theme – Step-By-Step Tutorial
Upgrading your theme in your dashboard is easy.
Log into your WordPress admin area …
Depending on which theme(s) you have installed on your site, you may receive an occasional alert in your WP Dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …
Updating a WordPress theme in the WP dashboard is easy. You can update your WordPress theme via the “Themes” screen, or the “Updates” feature.
Updating Your Site Themes Via The “Themes” Screen
You can see which themes require updating by going to your Themes area.
Select Appearance > Themes in your WordPress admin menu …
This brings you to the “Themes” screen …
Themes that need updating display an “Update Available” message over their 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 will automatically update the theme in seconds …
Your theme is now up-to-date …
Repeat the process described above to update all of your outdated themes, or use the method below to bulk upgrade multiple themes at once.
Updating WordPress Themes From The “Updates” Screen
Update your theme via the “Updates” screen as shown below:
To view all themes installed in 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 update process …
WordPress automatically updates all of the selected themes …
Congratulations! Now you know how to update your theme in your admin dashboard.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group