Updating Your Theme

It is possible to update your theme from within WordPress with one click. If you still need to manually update your theme, follow the details below.

There are a few different ways to manually update your theme depending on your specific situation. We recommend using a child theme if you are going to customize your theme files, as this simplifies updating your parent theme.

Before updating your theme, be sure you are running the latest version of WordPress. It is also a good idea to make sure you have a backup of your site. To learn more about backing up your WordPress website please see the Codex here: WordPress Backups Codex.

You can download the latest version of your theme in your My Account dashboard.

The easiest way to manually update your theme is to upload it via the WordPress dashboard.

1. Go to Appearance > Themes > Install Themes > Upload.
2. Click Browse and select the zip file.
3. Click Install Now.

You will most likely get an error.

The reason for this error is because you already have a theme folder on your server with the same name as the folder inside your ZIP file.

You can use Easy Theme and Plugin Upgrades plugin or do one of the following:

You can either rename the theme folder on your server, or rename the folder inside the zip file.

1. Unzip the file on your computer
2. Rename the folder (e.g. “canvas-new”). The folder name must not have spaces in it.
3. Compress the new folder to a ZIP file
4. Upload it via Appearance > Themes > Install Themes > Upload
5. Go to Appearance > Themes and activate the new version

If you have done any customizations to your theme files, these customizations will be lost if you use this method. If you have not done customizations to the theme, or you are running a child theme you can:

1. Go to Appearance > Themes
2. Activate TwentyEleven (or another theme)
3. Delete the old theme
4. Upload new version via Appearance > Themes > Install Themes > Upload
5. Activate the new version

If you have made modifications to your theme files (for example your custom.css), you need to reapply them to the new version. We recommend using a child theme to avoid this step. If you are an advanced user, you can see the changelog.txt in the theme folder to only update the updated files via FTP.

Still have a question and need assistance? Get in touch with a Happiness Engineer via the Help Desk.