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Key takeaways
- WordPress’s Updates screen warns that changes made to theme files are lost on update. Edits in the parent theme disappear without any error, so move them into a child theme, a small custom plugin or Additional CSS first.
- A child theme protects you, but it can still break. After a major ColorMag release changed class names, users running child themes lost CSS and menus, and the developer told them to rewrite their custom code.
- Since WordPress 6.3, a manual theme update that fails partway restores the previous version on its own. That does nothing for an update that installs cleanly and then breaks your layout, so you still need a backup.
- On WooCommerce stores, open WooCommerce > Status > System Status after the update and look under Templates. Outdated template overrides can break shipping or checkout even when the theme update itself succeeded.
- Match the exact error message to its cause before you retry. “Could not create directory” means a permissions or disk problem, and “Download failed. Unauthorized.” means a license problem.
The update button is the easy part. WordPress’s own Updates screen warns that any changes made to theme files will be lost, and that warning covers most of the damage people see afterward: a header gone, a mobile menu that stops opening, a custom template back to the theme author’s version. The site still loads, so nobody notices until a customer does.
This guide covers the dashboard update, the manual route, premium themes, what to check afterward, and how to read the error when an update fails.
Answer three questions before you click update
A theme update is low risk when nobody has edited the theme and the site is simple. It carries more risk when the theme has been customized, when it is a premium theme with a license, or when the site is a store. Three questions tell you which case you are in.
Where do your customizations live? If someone edited style.css, functions.php or a template file inside the parent theme, including through Appearance > Theme File Editor, the update overwrites those edits without warning you. Before you update, move them into a child theme (for PHP and templates), a small site-specific plugin (for code snippets) or Appearance > Customize > Additional CSS (for styling). Setting up a child theme does not move existing edits into it. You have to find each edit, copy it across and test it. Our guide to theme customization that survives updates covers where each kind of change belongs.
Where does this theme get its updates? Free themes from the WordPress.org directory update through the dashboard. Themes bought on the WooCommerce Marketplace update through the WooCommerce.com Update Manager. Other premium themes update through their vendor’s license, which is usually tied to one domain.
Can you get back? Take a backup of the database and the whole wp-content folder. WooCommerce’s update guide gives the same scope for a manual store backup. Then confirm you can actually restore it. A backup you have never restored is a guess.
For a store or a heavily customized site, run the update on a staging copy first. If your host offers one-click staging, use that. Otherwise a staging plugin will do the job.
How to update a theme from the dashboard
You need an administrator login. No hosting access is needed unless WordPress asks for FTP credentials, which is covered in the errors table below.
- Go to Appearance > Themes. A theme with an update available shows a notice on its card. Click the card, then View details to read the changelog. Look for a major version jump, a new minimum PHP version or a new required plugin.
- Take and confirm your backup.
- Click Update now on the theme card. The other route is Dashboard > Updates: tick the theme under Themes, then click Update Themes.
- Wait until the screen confirms the update is done. Closing the tab while it runs is how sites end up stuck in maintenance mode.
- Clear every cache layer: your caching plugin, the host’s server cache, and any CDN. Then open the site in a private browser window.
You do not need to deactivate a child theme to update its parent. Leave the child theme active and update the parent.
Theme updates and plugin updates share most of their mechanics: the same Updates screen, the same maintenance file, the same permission failures and rollback tools. If you would rather not run this cycle yourself, SiteSelf handles WordPress plugin and theme updates on request through chat, and anything that touches theme files needs hosting access.
Premium themes follow the vendor’s channel
A premium theme that shows no update usually has a license or connection problem. The theme itself is rarely at fault. For WooCommerce Marketplace themes, WooCommerce’s troubleshooting page lists the usual causes: an expired subscription, the wrong or disconnected WooCommerce.com account, a key assigned to another site, a missing Update Manager, a blocked REST API (load yourdomain.com/wp-json/ and you should see JSON), Plain permalinks, WP-Cron not running, a firewall or security plugin, or restrictive file permissions.
Other vendors bind the license to a domain. After a migration, or on a staging copy, updates can fail with “Download failed. Unauthorized.” until you register the license again for the current URL.
Updating manually with a ZIP
The manual route is fine when the dashboard update is not offered, for example with a premium theme you downloaded from the vendor. Go to Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme and upload the ZIP. When WordPress recognizes the theme is already installed, choose Replace current with uploaded.
Three mistakes cause most manual failures. The first is uploading the vendor’s full package (theme plus documentation) instead of the installable theme ZIP, which returns “No valid themes found” or a missing style.css error. The second is extracting the ZIP first. The third is deleting the old theme before you upload, which WooCommerce’s theme update guide warns loses your customizations.
Uploading the theme folder over FTP into /wp-content/themes/ also works. Treat it as a workaround: if the dashboard update failed, the reason it failed is still there.
What a correct result looks like
A finished update shows the new version number on the theme’s card under Appearance > Themes. On the site itself, check the pages that earn money or leads, not just the homepage:
- Header, footer and menus, including the mobile menu at phone width.
- One post, one page, an archive and the 404 page.
- Every form, with a real test submission.
- Your browser console and the PHP error log, for new warnings.
Stores need more. WooCommerce’s update guide lists product pages, cart, checkout, payments, shipping, taxes and emails. Then open WooCommerce > Status > System Status and scroll to Templates. If your theme overrides WooCommerce templates and those copies are now outdated, they are flagged there. Update the override to match the current template, or remove or rename it so WooCommerce falls back to its default.
Some breakage stays invisible. In one project’s GitHub issue, an Avada site came through an update with “nothing visibly broken,” yet its pages grew to about 1.46 MB of raw HTML, up from about 0.3 MB. A quick page-weight or speed check after the update catches this kind of regression.
Should you turn on theme auto-updates?
WordPress lets you enable auto-updates per theme from Appearance > Themes. That makes sense for an unedited theme on a simple site with working backups. It makes less sense for a store, a site with template overrides or a page builder, or any site where a broken checkout costs revenue before anyone notices.
Professionals are split. In MelaPress’s 2025 survey of 264 professionals, 32% of web designers and 33% of web developers used automatic updates. Agencies commonly stage risky updates (page builders, WooCommerce, major versions), batch the low-risk ones and keep a 24 to 48 hour rollback window. Waiting forever carries its own risk: a site several major versions behind is much harder to bring up to date than one that has been updated regularly.
What to do when the update fails
Read the exact message before you retry anything. Each message points to a different cause.
| What you see | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| “Could not create directory”, or WordPress asks for FTP details | File ownership or permissions on wp-content/themes and wp-content/upgrade, or a full disk | Ask your host to correct ownership and check disk space. Don’t open permissions across the whole site. |
| “There has been a critical error on this website.” | A PHP, plugin or page-builder conflict with the new version | Use the recovery-mode email link, read wp-content/debug.log, test on a default theme, then deactivate plugins one at a time. |
| No error, but custom layout or features are gone | Edits in the parent theme were overwritten | Restore the old theme files from backup, move the edits into a child theme, then update again. |
| “Download failed. Unauthorized.” | License expired or registered to another domain | Renew, or register the license again for this URL. |
| “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Please check back in a minute.” | An interrupted update left a .maintenance file behind | Delete .maintenance from the WordPress root (not the theme folder), then run the update again. |
| “Destination folder already exists” or “No valid themes found” | Wrong ZIP, or the upload collided with the existing folder | Upload the installable ZIP and choose Replace current with uploaded. |
| Site looks unchanged, or oddly styled | Cache | Purge the plugin, server and CDN caches, then check in a private window. |
Deleting .maintenance brings the site back but does not finish the update. Confirm the version number afterward. For a white screen or critical error, our guide to fixing a WordPress white screen walks through the isolation steps.
Stop and get help when the error log names the theme and you cannot tell what changed, when a restore fails, or when checkout is affected on a live store. Stacking more changes on top of a failure you don’t understand makes the cause harder to find.
How to roll back a theme update
Since WordPress 6.3, if a manual theme update fails partway through, WordPress restores the previous version, which it keeps temporarily in wp-content/upgrade-temp-backup/themes/. That covers a broken install. It does nothing when the update installs cleanly and the new version is the problem.
For that case you have two options. WP Rollback reverts any theme from the WordPress.org directory to an earlier version. It does not cover premium themes. For everything else, restore the backup you took before updating. Once the site is back, reproduce the problem on staging and fix the cause before you try the update again.