Delete a Theme

This guide will show you how to remove themes from your site.

In this guide

1. Remove a Theme
2. Delete a Theme You Uploaded
3. Reasons Not To Delete a Theme

Remove a Theme

When you want to remove a WordPress.com theme from your site, first, change your theme to a different theme. All WordPress sites must have an active theme, and you do not need to delete the current theme before activating a new theme.

If there is content from the old theme you wish to remove, you can delete that content from Pages, Posts, and Media in your dashboard or consider resetting your site to start fresh.

Delete a Theme You Uploaded

On our plugin-enabled plans, you can upload third-party themes from other providers. You may delete these themes by following these steps:

1. Visit your site’s dashboard.
2. Go to Appearance → Themes and click the “My Themes” tab.
3. Click the ellipsis (three dots) to the right of the theme name to open up the theme options.
4. Select the “Delete” option.
5. A confirmation box will appear to make sure you want to delete this theme. Click Delete to confirm the deletion.

Themes provided by WordPress.com do not have a delete option because they are not stored on your site. Therefore, they do not take up storage space or present any security risk, which are common reasons to delete a theme from a self-hosted WordPress site.

If the theme you wish to delete is currently the active theme on the site, make sure to activate a new theme first. You cannot delete the currently active theme.

Reasons Not To Delete a Theme

There are a few situations in which you would want to keep a theme on your site:

• If you think you may wish to reactivate the theme later with its current settings.
• If the theme is the parent of a child theme you wish to use.