Why it’s important to be careful when changing WordPress themes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Technically, changing WordPress themes is easy. All you have to do is upload a new theme to your website and activate it. It’s a process that can take minutes if you already have your theme files ready to go (or if you’re downloading a theme from WordPress.org<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem is that the process of switching your theme doesn’t always go smoothly. In our experience, the longer you’ve used the same theme, the more likely you are to run into errors when changing to a new one. For example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Naturally, these issues don’t mean that you should never change your theme \u2013 just that you need to be careful while doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To get started, you’ll want to pick the right theme to replace your current choice. There are some considerations that go into choosing a quality theme<\/a>, and you should keep them in mind while you search. Once you know what theme you want to change to, you can turn your attention to making the switch thoughtfully and carefully.<\/p>\n\n\n Neve is one example of a quite cool WordPress theme. \u261d\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before I get into how to change a WordPress theme, I think it’s important to quickly highlight what happens to your existing content when you change themes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of your regular site elements will not<\/strong> be affected by changing themes. That is, beyond the new styling that they might get from your new theme, nothing will change with:<\/p>\n\n\n\n But there are some theme-specific pieces of content that won’t necessarily make the journey when you change themes. These are things like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, you may need to reconfigure your existing menus and widget areas – but you won’t actually “lose” any functionality with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a nutshell<\/strong>, the vast majority of your content will come through unscathed when you switch WordPress themes. But if you’re using any functionality that’s unique<\/em> to your theme, rather than part of a plugin or the core WordPress software, you will probably lose those things when changing themes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you want to avoid creating compatibility issues or breaking aspects of your site, it’s smart to approach theme replacements methodically. Here’s how we recommend you do just that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, you should never undertake a major update of your site without backing everything up. In fact, you should avoid going very long without backing up your site anyway. After all, something can always <\/em>go wrong. If it does, having a recent copy provides you with a painless way to restore your site to its last working state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you’ve never created a restore point for your website, we recommend using UpdraftPlus, which makes the process simple. Plus, it enables you to automate your backups, so you won’t have to perform them manually. Here’s our full guide<\/a> on how to back up your site using this plugin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, if anything goes wrong while switching your theme, you can grab a previous backup and restore your site to its old state, and you can try again or choose a different theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As any developer will tell you, it’s never a smart move to test changes to your site in a live environment. That’s why staging websites exist. These are test copies of your site that the public can’t access, and where you can try out any alterations without affecting your real site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We’ve already written a complete guide to setting up your own staging site<\/a> in multiple ways, such as manually or by using a plugin. Give it a read now, and choose whichever method you prefer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, if your web host provides you with built-in functionality for setting up staging sites, that’s often the easiest option. You can also use an online demo tool<\/a> if you want to emulate your site rather than create an actual copy. No matter what method you pick, once your staging website is ready, it should be an exact<\/em> copy of your live site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this section, I’m going to focus entirely on the “how” part of how to change a WordPress theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To get started, you need to install the new WordPress theme that you want to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To do that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you found your theme at WordPress.org, you can search for it by name and click the install button:<\/p>\n\n\n And if you purchased a premium theme or otherwise have a ZIP file, you can upload the ZIP file by clicking the Upload Theme<\/strong> button:<\/p>\n\n\n Once you install your new theme, don’t click the activate button yet, though.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The WordPress Customizer has a helpful feature that lets you play around with your new theme on a live preview of your site before making it active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is helpful because it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here’s how to use the WordPress Customizer<\/a> to preview your new theme:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, you should see a live preview of your existing content using your new <\/em>theme:<\/p>\n\n\n You can see that, on my example site, WordPress was actually able to correctly sync up the existing menus and widgets with the new theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hopefully the same happens to you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n But if it doesn’t, you can also use the Menus<\/strong> and Widgets<\/strong> options in the Customizer sidebar to fix any issues that you see:<\/p>\n\n\n Assuming your new theme makes use of the WordPress Customizer, you can also make other tweaks. And you can also click through your site to see how other pages look. For example, if you click on a blog post, WordPress will load that blog post using the preview of your new theme<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once you’re happy with how things look, to make your new theme live, all you need to do is click the Activate & Publish <\/strong>button:<\/p>\n\n\n And that’s it! You just learned how to change a WordPress theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now that you have the new theme activated and your design improved, it’s time to start the testing process. That means going through each of your pages, posts, and plugins to look for errors. What may go wrong will depend on your unique setup, but here’s what you’ll want to pay attention to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n In most cases, changing WordPress themes will shake up the look of your site. However, all its major features should still work. If that isn’t the case, you probably need to look for a better-coded alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you’ve followed all of these steps, you should be safe from any site-breaking errors and ready to start enjoying your site’s new look!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most people will want to switch themes at some point in their time with WordPress, so learning how to change a WordPress theme is something that every WordPress user should know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the actual process itself is simple, doing it the right<\/em> way helps ensure that you don’t just switch themes, but also that your site functions just as well with your new theme as it did with your old theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember, here’s all you need to do:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
![\"Neve\"](\"https:\/\/mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com\/cb:c5QE.37290\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/themeisle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Neve.png\")
\n\n\n\nWill you lose any content if you change WordPress themes?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Steps to take before changing WordPress themes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Create a backup of your website<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
(Optional) Create a staging site to test your theme<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
How to change a WordPress theme the right way<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Step 1: Install new WordPress theme<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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![\"Image](\"https:\/\/mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com\/cb:c5QE.37290\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/themeisle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/How-to-find-your-theme.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com\/cb:c5QE.37290\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/themeisle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Add-Astra-Theme-to-WordPress.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n![\"Upload](\"https:\/\/mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com\/cb:c5QE.37290\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/themeisle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Upload-Theme-to-WordPress.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nStep 2: Preview new theme with WordPress Customizer<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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![\"Image](\"https:\/\/mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com\/cb:c5QE.37290\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/themeisle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/How-to-Customize-Theme-in-WordPress.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
![\"previeiwing](\"https:\/\/mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com\/cb:c5QE.37290\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/themeisle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/how-to-change-a-wordpress-theme-7.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com\/cb:c5QE.37290\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/themeisle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Hestia-Customizing-Theme.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nStep 3: Activate new theme<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/mllj2j8xvfl0.i.optimole.com\/cb:c5QE.37290\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/f:best\/https:\/\/themeisle.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Activate-Publish-Hestia-Theme-Button.png\")
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nStep 4: Final check – test your pages, posts, and plugins for errors<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Wrapping things up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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