How to Install and Change a Theme in Drupal

What is a theme?

A theme is like an outfit for your website. The words and pictures stay the same. The colors, fonts and layout change. Drupal is a program for building websites. It comes with a few themes, and you can add more.

Warning: Take a backup of your site before you change themes. The look of your pages may change a lot.

Switch to a theme you already have

1. Log in to your Drupal admin area.
2. In the top toolbar, click Appearance.
3. Scroll to the list of installed themes.
4. Find the theme you like. Click Install and set as default.
5. Open your site's home page in another tab and check how it looks.

Install a new theme

Drupal 8 and newer work best with a theme file from the official Drupal website. The file is a compressed archive (zip or tar.gz).

1. Download the theme to your computer. Pick a theme that matches your Drupal version.
2. In the Drupal admin area, click Appearance.
3. Click Install new theme.
4. Choose to upload the file, or paste the link to it. Click Install.
5. When it finishes, click Install newly added themes.
6. Find the new theme in the list. Click Install and set as default.

If your version of Drupal does not show an upload option, the theme can be placed by hand. Upload and unzip it into the themes folder using File Manager or FTP. FTP is a way to send files from your computer to your server. After that, return to Appearance to turn it on.

Go back to the old theme

1. Go to Appearance.
2. Find your old theme.
3. Click Set as default.

If your site breaks, open a support ticket.

Quick recap

• A theme changes how your site looks.
• Use Appearance to switch or install.
• Click Install and set as default.
• Back up first, and clear the cache if it looks wrong.