Activate a theme

Activating a theme sets the overall design of your WordPress.com site, and you can change it at any time without losing content. This guide shows you how to find a WordPress theme, preview it with your own content, and activate it on your site.

In this video, you’ll learn how to find and activate a theme on your WordPress.com site. It covers browsing and previewing the theme library, what to consider when choosing a design, and applying a theme to your site.

Most WordPress.com themes are block themes, which you edit visually in the Site Editor. Choose a block theme unless you have a specific reason to use an older (classic) theme. With a block theme, you can change your site’s layout, colors, fonts, and templates without writing code.

Classic themes are also available, but have a fixed layout that is edited in the Customizer. They do not support the Site Editor.

For a full comparison, read our guide to the different types of themes.

All themes offered by WordPress.com are mobile-friendly, accessibility-ready, and professionally designed for modern web standards. To browse our ever-growing collection of themes:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Appearance → Themes (or Appearance → Theme Showcase if using WP Admin).
3. Here, you can browse all themes or:
   • Narrow the list down by selecting a category at the top, such as Blog, Portfolio, Business, or Store.
   • Use the search bar at the top of the screen to search for themes by name or feature.
   • Upload your own theme.

Using the drop-down next to the search box at the top of the screen, you can narrow your search to the following types of themes:

• Free: themes available to all sites on WordPress.com.
• Included with Personal: themes available to all sites with a Personal plan or higher.
• Included with Premium: themes available to all sites with a Premium plan or higher.
• Partner: themes available to purchase on sites with an eligible paid plan. Learn more in our partner themes guide.

You can also search for themes developed by the WordPress community, such as Astra, OceanWP, Kadence, and more.

You can see how your site will look with a different theme without activating it. This lets you explore design options and make changes in the Site Editor before applying the theme to your live site.

To preview a theme, follow these steps:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Navigate to Appearance → Themes (or Appearance → Theme Showcase if using WP Admin).
3. Browse through the available themes and click on one that you like.
4. On the theme’s info page, click the arrow next to the “Preview” button to reveal the drop-down menu.
5. Select one of the following options:
   • Preview with demo content: View the theme with sample content provided by the theme designer.
   • Preview with your content: View the theme with your site’s existing pages, posts, and media.

6. Browse through the layout and make any changes to Styles, Templates, and other areas of the Site Editor. Your changes will not apply to your live site until you activate the theme.
7. If you’re satisfied with the look of the new theme, click the “Activate” button (if you made no changes) or the “Save and Activate” button (if you made changes).

To exit the Editor preview without activating the theme, click the < (arrow) next to the “Previewing [Theme Name]: Design” text:

Some themes include different style combinations to further personalize the look of your site. Click each Styles option to see the same theme with different color schemes and font choices applied:

You can activate the theme with your preferred style combination. You can make further changes to the colors and fonts after activating the theme.

When you activate a theme, your existing content carries over. Nothing is deleted, so it’s perfectly safe to activate any theme. You can always change your theme back to your previous theme if you want.

Once you have decided on the theme you would like to use, follow these steps to activate and apply it to your website:

1. From your site’s dashboard, navigate to Appearance → Themes (or Appearance → Theme Showcase if using WP Admin).
2. Click the thumbnail of the theme you want to activate.
3. Click the “Activate” button.
4. In a few seconds, the new theme will be applied to your site. Click the “Customize site” button to start working on your site’s new design.

If you want to use your own theme, a theme you purchased elsewhere, or a third-party theme, and you have an eligible plan on your site, you can visit Appearance → Themes and click the “Install new theme” button or the “Add new theme” button to upload the theme. Learn how to upload a custom theme.

If you get an error that reads “Unable to activate theme. Contact customer support” you may be able to resolve this error on your own by checking the following:

1. If you are activating a theme on a site that does not have plugins enabled, try to solve common browser issues and attempt to activate the theme again.
2. If you are activating a theme on a site with plugins, check for a theme or plugin conflict with the following guide: Solve problems with plugins.

AI agents can search the theme collection, tell you which theme is active on your site, and activate a different one. Here are some things you can ask an agent to do:

• “Find me a block theme suited to a restaurant.”
• “Which theme is active on my site right now?”
• “Activate the Gourmetto theme on my site.”