Updating Themes via FTP
Sometimes you need to install a theme manually. Here's the best and safest way to do that:
- Download the theme's zip file and unzip it.
- You should see the /theme/ folder (where theme is the name of the theme)
- Rename this folder to /theme-new/.
- Log in via FTP to your site and go to the /wp-content/themes/ directory.
- Upload the /theme-new/ folder into this directory.
- Now you should have both the /theme/ and /theme-new/ directories.
- Rename /theme/ to /theme-old/
- Rename /theme-new/ to /theme/
- Now test the site and make sure everything is working.
- When all is well, you can safely delete the /theme-old/ directory.
Keep in mind that "theme" in this case would be the name of the theme, so for an example with the Espresso theme:
- /espresso/
- /espresso-old/
- /espresso-new/