How To Update WordPress Manually Using cPanel
In this tutorial you will learn how to perform WordPress installation upgrades and software updates manually using cPanel.
Some web hosting environments or configuration settings can create problems for the WordPress auto-update feature.
If you cannot use the “Automatic Upgrade” feature, watch the video below and then complete the step-by-step tutorial to learn how to upgrade WordPress manually using cPanel …
How To Update WordPress Using cPanel – Step-By-Step Tutorial
WordPress automatically notifies you inside your administration area whenever there is a new update available …
You can also check which version of WordPress you are currently using and what the latest version is from your WordPress dashboard …
Downloading The Latest WordPress Version
Download the latest WordPress installation upgrade files. This can be done either by visiting http://www.wordpress.org and clicking on the “Download” tab …
… or from within your WordPress administration dashboard by clicking on the “Update to X.X.X” button …
… and choosing the download option …
Always backup your WordPress site, including your database and files before updating WordPress. This way you will be able to restore your site if anything goes wrong!
Organization Tip: We recommend creating a folder for your WordPress downloads (e.g. wp updates), and a new folder inside that one for each new version you download (e.g. “WP 3.5.1″). This will help you stay organized in case you ever need to revert to a previous version of WordPress.
Save your downloaded WordPress zip file to your hard drive:
After the zip file containing the updated WordPress files has finished downloading, extract (unzip) the file …
Open the unzipped folder and delete the “wp-content” folder inside …
Deleting the “wp-content” ensures that you won’t accidentally overwrite any of your plugin or theme settings during the update process.
After deleting the “wp-content” folder from the file, compress (zip) the folder again …
The latest version of WordPress is now ready to be uploaded to your site.
Notes: In the above screenshot, you can see that there are two files called “wordpress” inside the latest version folder – one “zipped” file (i.e. compressed) and one “unzipped” file (uncompressed):
- Use the uncompressed file if uploading the contents of the folder using FTP
- Use the compressed (zipped) file if uploading the contents of the folder using cPanel
Uploading WordPress Files Manually Using cPanel
Note: If you don’t have access to cPanel, you will need to perform the upgrade installation using FTP. This process is explained in this tutorial.
After downloading and preparing your files for the upgrade installation, log into your cPanel administration area …
Select Files > File Manager …
Inside the “File Manager” section, locate the directory in your server containing your existing WordPress installation and click on the “Upload” link …
The “Upload files” screen opens in a new window. Click on the “Browse” button (1), and locate the folder where you have downloaded and modified the WordPress upgrade file. Select the compressed upgrade installation file (2) and click “Open” to begin uploading the file (3) …
Your zip file will begin uploading into your server directory …
Once the file has been uploaded, close the “Upload files” tab, then navigate to the “File Manager” window …
Click on “Reload” to refresh the screen and display your newly uploaded upgrade installation file
Locate and select the uploaded zip file (called “wordpress.zip” in the example below), then click on the “Extract” menu button …
A pop up box appears in your window. Leave the settings as they appear and click the “Extract File(s)” button to begin decompressing all of the contents in your zipped file …
Once your file contents have been fully extracted, close the “Extraction Results” pop-up window …
Locate the folder containing all of the extracted files (it will have the same name as the zipped file) and double click on the folder to open it …
Click on “Select all” to select all of the files inside the extracted folder …
Click on the “Move File” button …
The “Move” box displays on your screen. At the bottom of the window, you will see the current path where your extracted WordPress upgrade files are located …
If you have been following the instructions in this tutorial correctly, your files only need to be moved one level up from the folder into which they have been extracted.
To move all of your selected files one level up …
(1) delete the last folder name from the path string (in this example the folder is called “wordpress”) – if you delete this folder from the path, your files will be moved into the directory above – in this case the root directory (i.e. “public_html”),
(2) Click on “Move File(s)” …
Note: If your WordPress site is installed in a subfolder (e.g. mydomain.com/blog), then your files would be uploaded and extracted into a folder inside the folder called “blog”. This means that the path to your extracted files would look something like “/public_html/blog/wordpress/”. To move your extracted files into the right location (i.e. one level up), your path would have to look like this: “/public_html/blog/” (see the video tutorial in this module you’re still unclear about this)
After all the WordPress upgrade files have been moved one level up, your current folder is going to be empty. Click on “Up One Level” to return to the directory containing all of your WordPress installation files …
Moving the new version files into your WordPress installation directory will automatically replace the existing files in the old version.
Since you have now upgraded your version of WordPress, you no longer need the upgrade files sitting in your server.
(1) Select both the compressed and decompressed upgrade files (select the files by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on each file).
(2) Once your files have been selected, click on the “Delete” menu button …
A dialog box pops up asking you to confirm the deletion of your selected files. Make sure you have selected the right files, then click on the “Delete File(s)” button …
Once your files have been deleted, log out of your cPanel administration and log into to your WordPress administration area …
As soon as you log in, you may be greeted by a message informing you that a Database update is required. If this message pops, click on “Update WordPress Database” to update your WordPress database …
You will be notified if the update is successful with another message window. Click on “Continue” to proceed …
You will be taken to your WordPress dashboard …
Your WordPress upgrade installation has been successfully completed.
Note: Use the cPanel or the FTP upgrade method to update WordPress if you experience any problems using the built-in automatic WordPress update feature.