Don't be stingy, Share this post with others!

• Tweet
• Bookmark this!

How To Upgrade WordPress Manually

There are many tutorials on the web that teach you how to upgrade your WordPress theme automatically but not Manually. Today I am going to show you how to upgrade WordPress manually. After this tutorial you will never upgrade automatic again.

Step 1

Log into your WordPress admin panel and look for Tools>Export (We’re backing up our database just in case something goes wrong)

Step 2

Download export file

Step 3

Browse for a yellow highlight at the very top of your admin panel and click please update now.

Step 4

We do not want to upgrade automatically so download the new WordPress upgrade folder.

Step 5

Extract Folder from .rar or .zip

Step 6

Open your FTP (file transfer protocol) and go to your main directory (where WordPress files are)

Step 7

Now we will delete everything except for wp-config, .htcacess and the folder wp-content

Note: Before we add the new folders into our directory delete wp-config, and wp-content

Step 8

Now lets add our new files into our directory.

Step 9

Ok now head back into your WordPress admin panel and refresh the page and you should see the following message.

Congratulations! You have upgraded your WordPress version without using automatic update. I hope this tutorial helped.

Don't be stingy, Share this post with others!

• Tweet
• Bookmark this!

how to upgrade wordpress manually, Manually, Tutorial, Upgrade, upgrade wordpress tutorial, Wordpress, wordpress update manually.

26 Responses to How To Upgrade WordPress Manually

1. August 10, 2009 at 1:54 am Ollo

   pretty nice post man. But just out of curiosity what benefits are you finding through upgrading manually? I have just started using wp a few months back and am curious why this is so much better?

2. August 10, 2009 at 2:03 am Marcell

   Well Upgrading wordpress manually makes sure everything has been upgraded. When you upgrade automatically you still have a chance of everything not being updated

3. September 30, 2009 at 6:54 pm Tnelson

   Your blog is so informative … ..I just bookmarked you….keep up the good work!!!!

4. June 25, 2010 at 9:56 pm Masdin

   Marcell Purham, thank you very much for this tutorial. I couldn’t update my WP automatically due to some hosting restrictions. With the very clear explanation above I have successfully updated it to 3.0, many thanks….

   Masdin – Indonesia
   
   • June 26, 2010 at 3:33 pm Marcell

     No Problem!. Glad it’d helped you

5. August 15, 2010 at 11:33 am kgall

   This was extremely helpful. The best tutorial I could find. I didn’t want to upgrade to wp3.0 so I was going to upgrade manually to most stable version of wordpress..2.9.2 This really helps. I had a friend tell me how to do it…but left out a couple of steps. You validated my concerns. Thanks!
   
   • August 15, 2010 at 11:18 pm Marcell

     No problem! Glad you liked the tutorial

6. September 17, 2010 at 4:05 pm Brook

   Great post. I also had to upgrade manually due to some hosting issues. This worked first time.
   
   • September 19, 2010 at 11:30 pm Marcell

     Glad it worked out for you!

7. October 13, 2010 at 10:17 am faaster

   Thank you so much!!!!

8. November 27, 2010 at 4:47 am Siva

   Hey, please someone help me.. Its URGENT..!!
   I got the below error message when tried to access the /wp-admin,php (login page)
   Now, I cant even see the login page after making the same migrating steps being followed in this article….

   “Error 500 – Internal server error

   An internal server error has occured!
   Please try again later.”
   
   • December 2, 2010 at 3:51 pm Marcell

     Try deleting your .htaccess file and see if that works?

9. December 27, 2010 at 7:03 am satz491

   Superb! Worked so well

10. December 30, 2010 at 3:56 pm Keith Davis

    Hi Marcell

    Brilliant post that I will probably print off.
    I’m trying to understand enough about wordpress files in order to do my own manual update.

    One question, you say…

    “Note: Before we add the new folders into our directory delete wp-config, and wp-content”

    Are these two files / folders never updated by wordpress?

11. January 8, 2011 at 5:52 am ops

    Thanks for your guide, clear and precise, I upgrade wordpress manually in minutes.

12. March 3, 2011 at 4:56 pm Al

    Thanks a lot my friend!

13. March 14, 2011 at 3:24 am digolbot

    thanks buddy.. Helps me a lot due to restriction of my server with auto update..

    digolbot
    Malaysia

14. April 6, 2011 at 12:05 am Kumar

    I follow the the instruction exactly as you given to upgrade my blog from wordpress 3.1 to wordpress 3.1.1. But finally unable to upload below file to server.

    wp-includes\class-simplepie.php

    It ask to replace this file. but I am 100% sure, I deleted all files except 3 you have mentioned. when I give permission to replace it, it doesn’t replace. always replace dialog box appear again and again. I am using Filezilla.

    Now my dashboard news doesn’t load.

    please help me. It is urgent.
    
    • April 7, 2011 at 1:36 pm Marcell

      Try using fireftp. Filezilla does that to me often so see if that helps.

15. May 29, 2011 at 10:40 am rakesh kumar

    May i use these steps on a live system, As this is very urgent and required by my publisher

16. July 6, 2011 at 3:49 am Dima

    That was really helpful! Thank you for the post. I managed to update my blog in 10 mins
    
    • July 7, 2011 at 11:47 am Marcell Purham

      No problem, I am very glad this tutorial was helpful to you!

17. August 7, 2011 at 8:12 am Arwin Kim

    Thanks bro, this tutorial helps me a lot upgrading my WP.

18. August 13, 2011 at 9:46 pm Violetta

    Do I have to delete old theme? How? Problem is that after last WP upgrade the theme I used totally crashed my site. And the new version is not in the depository because themes’ criteria are changed.

19. August 21, 2011 at 9:32 am Chris

    Great guide! I have a problem which kinda is related to thi. I tried to do the updating automatically but it failed. Now when I try to follow your guide I can’t even log in to the admin panel because of the failed update before. Any idea of what I can do to be able to log in again?

    Thanks
    Chris
    
    • August 28, 2011 at 11:38 pm Marcell Purham

      If you replace the correct folders and clear cached you should be able to login once again.