If you do one thing today, make it this…

Delete any WordPress themes that you aren’t using.

Why, you ask? It’ll make your website more secure; help speed it up and save you some valuable disk space.

A WordPress theme is a group of files that work together to create the design and layout of your website. It helps you change things like how content appears on a page, as well as the fonts and colours you use.

In the process of building a website, you might try out a few themes for size, until you find one that fits. But what about the ones that didn’t work out? More than likely, they are still installed on your site, taking up disk space and potentially slowing down your site.

I will also take a guess that these discarded WordPress themes have not been updated.

A step-by-step guide to deleting unused WordPress themes

  • Log-in to the back end of your website.
  • Select Appearance > Themes from the left-hand menu. Your active theme will be highlighted.
Example of themes page in WordPress Dashboard
  • Check whether your active theme is a child theme – hover over the image and click Theme Details. If it says, “This is a child theme of [theme name]“, you need to keep this parent theme too.
Example of WordPress theme details in Dashboard
  • Anything else can go. Hover over each theme image and click Theme Details.
  • Click the red Delete text in the bottom right corner

And you’re good to go!

Bonus tip

WordPress advises leaving a default WordPress theme, such as Twenty Twenty-One or Twenty Twenty installed. If you ever experience issues with a third-party theme, this gives you an easy fallback.

If you would like some help tidying up your WordPress website, check out my Website Health Check service. Alternatively drop me an email at hello@wisegenius.co.uk.