How To Update WordPress Themes

Learn how to easily update WordPress themes inside your dashboard …

Theme Management: Updating Your ThemeIf you are new to WordPress, make sure to read our overview of WordPress themes. The detailed article explains what themes are and how using themes can save small business owners time and money.

This tutorial will show you how to easily upgrade your WordPress theme with just a few clicks inside your dashboard.

Updating A WordPress Theme – Best Practices

Upgrading Themes - Best Practices Checklist

Before updating any themes, we recommend going through the checklist below to help prevent any problems occuring during the process.

1. Back Up Your Site Fully

Backing up your files and data before making any changes to your site is essential. This way, if something goes wrong, you can always restore.

If you don’t want to perform manual backups, there are many plugins you can use. Learn about a WordPress backup plugin that can automate your site backups here:

2. Check The Changelog

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 accompanying an update listing new features, improvements, bug fixes or any other changes in 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.

Useful Tip

Typically, web service providers will set up a test site where they can test the latest version of the theme, track bugs and verify that the new theme version doesn’t conflict with any existing plugins or settings before installing 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 name 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 and see if other theme users have reported any issues with the new theme version.

You can enter the theme name and version into Google, and search the theme developer’s support forum (many developers provide forums 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 customizations 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 visit the WordPress Codex child theme page here:

Useful Tip

As you will see below, the actual process of updating a WordPress theme is fairly simple. The step in the upgrading process that takes the most time and effort to complete 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 for ensuring problem-free upgrades. Ultimately, as a website owner, it is your responsibility to protect your online properties.

Updating Your Theme – Step-By-Step Tutorial

Upgrading your theme in your admin dashboard is simple.

Log into your WordPress admin area …

Upgrading Your Themes

Depending on what theme(s) are installed on your website, you may receive occasional alerts in your dashboard that new theme versions are available and require updating …

WordPress Theme Management: Updating A Theme In WordPress

Updating themes from the dashboard is a very simple process. You can update your site’s theme via the “Themes” section, or the “Updates” area.

Updating WordPress Themes From The “Themes” Area

You can see which themes require updating by going to your Themes area.

Choose Appearance > Themes from your WordPress admin menu …

WordPress Theme Management: Upgrading Your WP Theme

This opens up the “Themes” screen …

Upgrading WordPress Themes From Your Dashboard

Themes with new versions display an “Update Available” message over the theme’s thumbnail image …

WordPress Theme Management: How To Upgrade Your WordPress Themes

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

How To Update Your Themes

WordPress automatically updates your theme in seconds …

How To Upgrade Your WordPress Themes

Your theme is now updated …

Updating Your WP Theme

Repeat the above process to update all of your outdated themes, or use the method below to bulk update multiple themes.

Updating WordPress Themes From The “Updates” Screen

Update your WordPress theme via the “Updates” area as follows:

To view all themes installed on your site that require updating, click on Dashboard > Updates

How To Upgrade Your Theme

This opens up the Updates screen. Scroll down to the Themes section …

WordPress Theme Management: Upgrading Your Theme

Check the box next to all the themes you want to update and click on Update Themes to complete the update process …

How To Update Themes In WordPress

WordPress automatically updates all of the selected themes …

Updating Your WordPress Themes

Congratulations! Now you know how to upgrade your theme from the WP dashboard.

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Originally published as How To Update WordPress Themes.