WordPress is a popular and powerful content management system that powers millions of websites around the world. For that reason, and to ensure security, compatibility, and performance remain excellent, official updates are released on a regular basis.

This is why keeping your WordPress version up to date is crucial for the security, performance, and functionality of your site.

In this article, we will show you how to check your WordPress version using various methods, and how to upgrade your WordPress version using different options.

How to Check Your WordPress Version

There are several ways to check your WordPress version, depending on your level of access and preference. Here are some of the most common methods:

  • Check the WordPress dashboard: The easiest way to check your WordPress version is to log in to your WordPress dashboard and look at the bottom right corner of the screen. You will see a message that says “Thank you for creating with WordPress”, followed by the version number.
WordPress dashboard version
  • Check the source code of your website: Another way to check your WordPress version is to view the source code of your website in your browser. You can do this by right-clicking on any page of your website and selecting “View page source”.

    Then, look for a line that starts with <meta name="generator" content="WordPress ..." The content attribute will show you the WordPress version.
  • Check the wp-includes/version.php file: Another method to check your WordPress version is to access the wp-includes/version.php file in your WordPress root directory. You can do this by using an FTP client or a file manager tool in your hosting control panel. You will see a file that contains several
    PHP variables, one of which is $wp_version. The value of this variable is your WordPress version.If you have SSH access to your server, you can execute the following command in the root directory of your WordPress folder to see only the relevant lines instead of opening the entire text file.
grep "wp_version" wp-includes/version.php
check wordpress version
  • Use WP-CLI: Another way to check your WordPress version is to use the command-line interface (CLI) if you have SSH access to your server. To check your WordPress version, you need to navigate to your WordPress root directory, where the wp-config.php file is located, then, run the following command to check your WordPress version:
wp core version

How to Upgrade Your WordPress Version

Once you know your WordPress version, you may want to upgrade it to the latest version available. There are several benefits of upgrading your WordPress version, such as:

  • Improved security: Upgrading your WordPress version will protect your site from potential vulnerabilities and attacks that may exploit outdated code.
  • Improved performance: Upgrading your WordPress version will enhance the speed and efficiency of your site, as newer versions often include optimizations and bug fixes.
  • Improved functionality: Upgrading your WordPress version will enable you to use new features and functionalities that may not be compatible with older versions.

Before updating anything, it is always recommended to back up your site, including your files and database, in case something goes wrong during the update process.

There are different ways to upgrade your WordPress version, depending on your preference and situation. Here are some of the most common methods:

Use the Automatic Update Feature

The easiest way to upgrade your WordPress version is to use the automatic update feature that is built into WordPress. You can do this by logging in to your WordPress dashboard and clicking on “Updates” in the left sidebar.

You will see a message that tells you if there is a new version available, and a button that says “Update Now“. Clicking on this button will initiate the update process, which may take a few minutes.

Use the Manual Update Method

Another way to upgrade your WordPress version is to use the manual update method.

To update WordPress using the command-line interface (CLI), you can use the wp core update command, which updates WordPress to the latest stable version. You can also use some options to customize the update process, such as:

  • You can specify the zip file to use, instead of downloading from wordpress.org. For example, if you have a zip file named wordpress-6.3.0.zip in your current directory, you can run:
wp core update wordpress-6.3.0.zip
  • You can use the –minor flag to only install updates for minor releases, such as updating from WP 6.3 to 6.3.3 instead of 6.4.2. For example, if you want to update to the latest minor version, you can run:
wp core update --minor
  • You can specify the WordPress version using –version flag to update to a specific version, instead of to the latest version. You can also use nightly to update to the latest development version. For example, you can run:
wp core update --version=6.3
wp core update --version=nightly
upgrade wordpress via cli
  • When the installed WP version is greater than the requested version, you need to specify –force flag. This can be useful if you want to downgrade your WordPress version for some reason. For example, if you want to downgrade from WP 6.3 to WP 6.2, you can run:
wp core update --version=6.2 --force
  • By default, WordPress uses English. However you can specify the –locale option to select which language you want to download. For example, if you want to download the French version of WordPress, you can run:
wp core update --locale=fr_FR

Note: If you see “Error: Another update is currently in progress”, you may need to run wp option delete core_updater.lock after verifying that another update isn’t actually running.

Final Thoughts

Updating your WordPress version is essential for the security, performance, and functionality of your site. You should always keep your WordPress version up to date with the latest version available, or at least with the latest minor version.

In this article, we have shown you how to check and upgrade your WordPress version using various methods. We also explored how to use the command-line interface (CLI) to check and update your WordPress version.

If you are looking for an easy and convenient way to get started with WordPress, you should check out RunCloud. RunCloud is a cloud-based platform that allows you to manage your WordPress sites on any cloud server.

With RunCloud, you can easily install, update, backup, restore, clone, migrate, and secure your WordPress sites with just a few clicks. Sign up for RunCloud today!