Overview
It’s important to keep WordPress and your plugins up to date. Not only does give you the latest cool features, but you’ll also get the latest bug fixes and security patches to protect your site.
WordPress will let you know when updates are available, whether for WordPress itself, your theme, or your plugins. You can see this indicated in two places:
- on the Dashboard menu option
- on the Admin Bar at the top of the screen
In this example, we can see that six updates are available:
And upon clicking the Update icon in the header or Dashboard > Updates in the menu, we see that one of the updates is a new version of WordPress:
Two of the updates are plugins:
And three of three of the updates are themes:
Risks of a software update
First: if you have a testing site, absolutely update and test there first.
- In the best (and most likely) case, everything will go smoothly.
- In the worst (and very unlikely) case, your website will break.
Updating is usually quick and uneventful, but very infrequently there can be problems. These are rarely problems with WordPress itself. Most often the problems happen because of a conflict with your theme or your plugins.
You may want to apply any theme and plugin updates before updating WordPress, in case those updates are meant to avoid this sort of conflict.
The following process will make problems less likely.
Updating plugins
Periodically you’ll be informed of plugin updates:
When plugin updates are available, you’ll also see them indicated on the Plugins menu:
As with theme and WordPress software updates, you can update a plugin on the Dashboard > Updates menu. However, you can also update a plugin from within the Plugins menu:
The following process will make problems less likely when you update your plugins.
Plugin update method 1: fairly cautious
- Choose a time when you can afford for the site to be temporarily inaccessible.
- Back up your site.
- Update the plugin(s), either individually at Plugins, or as a group at Dashboard > Updates.
- Test your site.
Plugin update method 2: cautious
- Choose a time when you can afford for the site to be temporarily inaccessible.
- Back up your site.
- Consider putting the site into maintenance mode with a plugin like Coming Soon Page or Ultimate Maintenance Mode. Logged-in users will still see the site as usual, but visitors will just get notified that the site is temporarily unavailable.
- Disable all the plugins that need updates.
- Update and enable the plugins one-by-one, testing the site after each. Understand that with some plugins disabled, some features might be missing.
- If you enabled maintenance mode, disable it.
Plugin update method 3: very cautious
1. Ask a WordPress expert to do the update for you.
Updating themes
As with theme and WordPress software updates, you can update a theme on the Dashboard > Updates menu. However, you can also update a theme from within the Appearance > Themes menu. When you click the theme’s tile from within the Appearance > Themes menu option, you’ll see a display like this:
The theme update process is similar to the plugin update process, but with one additional step.
Theme update method 1: fairly cautious
- Choose a time when you can afford for the site to be temporarily inaccessible.
- Check Appearance > Themes and make sure you have at least one other theme installed. Typically this will be one of the WordPress default themes (Twenty Fourteen, Twenty Fifteen, etc.). If something goes wrong with your main theme update, you can switch to this other theme and limp along for troubleshooting.
- Back up your site.
- Update the theme, following the directions on the Updates screen.
- Test your site.
Theme update method 2: cautious
- Choose a time when you can afford for the site to be temporarily inaccessible.
- Check Appearance > Themes and make sure you have at least one other theme installed. Typically this will be one of the WordPress default themes (Twenty Fourteen, Twenty Fifteen, etc.). If something goes wrong with your main theme update, you can switch to this other theme and limp along for troubleshooting.
- Back up your site.
- Consider putting the site into maintenance mode with a plugin like Coming Soon Page or Ultimate Maintenance Mode. Logged-in users will still see the site as usual, but visitors will just get notified that the site is temporarily unavailable.
- Update the theme, following the directions on the Updates screen.
- Test your site.
- If you enabled maintenance mode, disable it.
Theme update method 3: very cautious
1. Ask a WordPress expert to do the update for you.
Updating WordPress
A few times a year you’ll be notified of an update to the WordPress software itself:
Clicking the version number will tell you more about the new WordPress update. If the update includes security patches, it’s especially important to apply the update soon.
You update your WordPress software version from the Dashboard > Updates menu.
WordPress update method 1: fairly cautious
- Choose a time when you can afford for the site to be temporarily inaccessible.
- Back up your site.
- Click Update Now in the WordPress Update notice and follow the instructions.
- Test your site.
WordPress update method 2: cautious
- Choose a time when you can afford for the site to be temporarily inaccessible.
- Back up your site.
- Consider putting the site into maintenance mode with a plugin like Coming Soon Page or Ultimate Maintenance Mode. Logged-in users will still see the site as usual, but visitors will just get notified that the site is temporarily unavailable.
- Disable (don’t delete!) all active plugins in the Plugins menu.
- Click Update Now in the WordPress Update notice and follow the instructions.
- Test your site, understanding that without plugins some features might be missing.
- Re-enable the plugins that were previously enabled, testing the site after enabling each plugin.
- If you enabled maintenance mode, disable it.
WordPress update method 3: very cautious
- Ask a WordPress expert to do the update for you.