One of the most common questions that I get asked by clients is how to upload a new WordPress theme, so I’ve put together a video which demonstrates the entire process.
There are 2 things required to follow along with the video.
1) An ftp application for transferring the files of the new theme up to your blog. There are many many ftp applications. My favorite, which I demonstrate in the video is FireFTP. This is a plugin for the popular FireFox browser, which I highly recommend.
Download FireFox browser (if you don’t already have it)
Then get the FireFtp plugin here. I’ll show you how to install it in the video.
Alternatives:
FileZilla (free)
Smart FTP (free for personal use)
Cyber Duck (for MAC users)
2) The new theme that you’d like to install. The best place to start looking for new themes is the WordPress theme repository.
The rest of the information you’ll need is covered in the video, including a bonus section on copying any code changes that you may have done in your old theme over to the new one.
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video.That’s it. Now you should have no problem uploading a new WordPress theme.
Can you do this if you are using wordpress.com as your domain?
Nope, this is for self-hosted WordPress blogs only. One of the main advantages to self-hosted is that you can customize everything.
I’m interested in making the change to self-hosted but to be honest I’m not sure I have the technical skills to accomplish it. I’m fairly computer savvy but this may be above my skill level.
Thanks for your reply.
This video is SO HELPFUL. I hadn’t FTPed anything since 1996, and I went from knowing nothing, I mean NO-THING, except being able to login to my yahoo mail, and I figured everything (or, at least getting a new theme) out with this step-by-step guide. Took me several sessions to be successful, but I am thrilled! Thanks so much!
Thank you SOOOOO much for this. I do sales for a wireless ISP and all of the techs that I have talked to at work made this seem very difficult when they tried to explain how to FTP. I followed along with your video and BAM it was done. Your video is the single most helpful thing I have come across since deciding to give blogging a shot! Thanks again.
i want to upload a theme from other website but i dunno how to upload it
If you use WordPress, you can follow the video in the post above. For Blogger, you’ll have to find another resource.
With the new WordPress now, we have been easy to upload theme, rite?
Yes, you can easily upload a theme from inside your WordPress admin panel. However, your selection is limited to the free themes located in the WordPress theme directory. If you purchase a theme from somewhere, you will still need to do the manual installation.
You have a really great site! Keep up the good work, I look forward to viewing more of your posts.
Great video, clear and easy to understand. I’m now away to look at your ‘How To Edit A WordPress Theme.’
hey, thanks for this vid, as a newbie it was really helpful and easy to follow! I have a problem though, I succesfully installed a new theme via fireFTP as per your instructions, but didn’t like it and then tried to install a new one. FireFTP now gives me the error message “the file already exists” each time I try to install a new theme and even when I press “overwrite” – I can no longer install any more new themes. Could you help???
The only reason that FireFTP should say that the file already exists is if you are trying to upload a file with the same name. If you are uploading a new theme, then your theme folder shouldn’t have the same name and you shouldn’t see this kind of error. Are you uploading a folder with the same name?
Hey thanks for your reply, this particular problem has sorted itself out now. But I swear I’ll be bald with all the hair I’m pulling out with wordpress! It’s not for the novice!
Your site is wonderful and the post is good and i see that we can have more of this kind of posts in the coming days, hope you can also visit my site.