{"id":3979,"date":"2022-08-29T12:07:14","date_gmt":"2022-08-29T12:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/obambu.com\/guide\/?p=3979"},"modified":"2022-08-29T12:07:15","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T12:07:15","slug":"how-to-delete-a-wordpress-theme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/obambu.com\/guide\/how-to-delete-a-wordpress-theme\/","title":{"rendered":"How to delete a wordpress theme"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>If you think your site needs a fresh look or seems outdated, it will seem necessary that you should replace your existing theme with a newer one. Knowing how to delete a wordpress theme is crucial in your site\u00b4s management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Deleting outdated or unused themes should be an important step in optimizing your site\u00b4s management. Unused themes can take up a lot of space in the backend of your site which could affect your site in a <strong>negative way<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But don\u00b4t be fooled, there are some themes that you shouldn\u00b4t delete. Why? we\u00b4ll have a look later on<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Reasons to uninstall a wordpress theme<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>As you\u00b4ve read earlier, having a unused theme can affect negatively in a lot of your site\u00b4s aspects like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Performance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Outdated themes can affect the <strong>loading speed<\/strong> of the admin dashboard. Also when wordpress checks for updates, it also looks at the outdated themes which wastes even more time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition, the extra space that the outdated theme uses influences the loading speeds of your users, which affects negatively to your SEO rankings<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Security<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/themeforest.net\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">WordPress themes<\/a><\/strong> are a common vulnerability in the community<strong>. Hackers<\/strong> take advantage of faulty code in some of the themes to introduce malware, backdoors or any type of malicious software into your site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This security issue is multiplied if you have <strong>unused and outdated themes<\/strong>. Theme updates usually have security patches which reduce the probability of an attack. But if you\u00b4re not using the themes instead of wasting storage space with updates just go ahead and delete the themes altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Storage<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Obviously, unused themes keep using up space in your site\u00b4s <strong>database<\/strong>. Which as we\u00b4ve seen earlier can cause a lot of performance issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also having this non-useful space means that you\u00b4ll have more files to handle when creating backups, moving <strong>between hosts<\/strong> or scanning your site for security <strong>or SEO<\/strong> reasons<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Do I have to keep unused WordPress themes?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The majority of unused themes are useless and should be removed but there are some you must keep deactivated. Here are a list:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>If you use a <strong>child theme<\/strong> (a theme that inherits certain look and function from another, parent theme). In this case it is recommended that you maintain the parent theme deactivated but installed on your site.<\/li><li>If you want to maintain a <strong>theme as backup<\/strong>. Having only a few themes on your site is harmless and won\u00b4t cause any issues<\/li><li>If you\u00b4re testing multiple themes<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How to delete a wordpress theme<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that you know when you should delete wordpress themes, here\u00b4s a couple of ways of deleting them<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1) Through the dashboard<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\" type=\"1\"><li>Login to your wordpress site as admin<\/li><li>In the dashboard, select <strong>Appearance &gt; Themes<\/strong>. It will show all the themes you have installed on your site.<\/li><li>Click <strong>Theme details<\/strong> on the theme you want to delete. Have in mind that you can\u2019t delete your current active theme. If you want to delete your current theme, you will have to previously select another on.<\/li><li>On the window that appears after selecting the <strong>theme details, <\/strong>press delete on the bottom right corner<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>This action will automatically delete the theme from your site and server. If you accidentally deleted the wrong theme, just reinstall it from <strong>the themes directory<\/strong> or re-upload your backup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2) Via FTP<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In case you <strong>don\u00b4t have<\/strong> <strong>admin access<\/strong>, you can directly delete the theme on the server through File Transfer Protocol FTP. Here\u00b4s how to do it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\" type=\"1\"><li>Connect to FTP<\/li><li>Open the <strong>wp-content <\/strong>folder, then the <strong>themes<\/strong> folder<\/li><li>Find the theme you want to delete on the <strong>themes folder<\/strong><\/li><li>Right click the theme you want to <strong>delete<\/strong>, and press delete<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3) Via WP command line<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If you prefer managing your site through the command line, you can also delete the themes through different commands:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First go to the command line and open the <strong>theme list:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>$ wp theme list<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>If you only want to see <strong>inactive themes<\/strong>, use this command:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>$ wp theme list --status=inactive<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, use this command to <strong>delete the theme<\/strong>. Note that you have to enter the name of the folder not the theme name:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<pre class=\"wp-block-code\"><code>$ wp theme delete uselesstheme<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n<p>Have in mind that you must be very careful when writing commands in the <strong>command line<\/strong>. A small mistake could mean that you delete the <strong>wrong file<\/strong> or misplace them to another folder, so keep that in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We hope this article was useful, if you want to read more about hosting or tech related articles, be sure to check out the rest of the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/Obambu.com\/guide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Obambu Guide<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you think your site needs a fresh look or seems outdated, it will seem necessary that you should replace your existing theme with a newer one. Knowing how to delete a wordpress theme is crucial in your site\u00b4s management. Deleting outdated or unused themes should be an important step in optimizing your site\u00b4s management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3980,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-obambu-tutorials"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v16.6.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to delete a wordpress theme - Obambu Guide | Navigating the Web Hosting World<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Deleting unused themes is an important step in optimizing your site\u00b4s management. 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