Quick summary
To deactivate a theme in WordPress, you must first activate a different theme — WordPress does not allow you to delete or deactivate the currently active theme directly. This tutorial walks you through the exact steps inside the WordPress Appearance settings to safely switch themes.
Steps
- On your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Appearance.
- Select Themes from the Appearance submenu.
- Click on a new theme to switch away from your current active theme.
- Select Activate this design to set the new theme as active.
- Confirm the switch by clicking Activate Adonay (or the name of your chosen theme).
- Important: you cannot delete the currently active theme — always activate a replacement theme first before attempting to remove the old one.
