A WordPress installation comes with several themes installed by default. Those are themes created by the WordPress Team.

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In some cases, depending on how you install WordPress and what software you might use, a WordPress installation might come with a bundle of themes, and you could end up with, like, 15 themes pre-installed.

Usually, you shouldn’t have more than your theme, child theme, and another theme you might use to switch to at some point for troubleshooting purposes.

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Why you should delete your unused themes

  • They unnecessarily occupy space;
  • You’ll have extra updates notifications and updates to do, which could be annoying;
  • And the most important reason: security. As well as plugins, hackers can use themes as entry points to hack into your website. Getting hacked is already frustrating, so imagine how much more frustrating it would be if you’d get hacked through a theme that you don’t even use or need.

How to delete themes via Dashboard

If you don’t want to watch the video, you can read the steps below.

1. Go to Appearance -> Themes.

2. Hover over the theme and click on Theme Details.

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WordPress themes details

3. Then, on the bottom-right corner, press Delete.

Delete WordPress theme via Dashboard

4. Confirm and that’s it.

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Note that you can’t delete a theme that’s Active. First, it needs to be deactivated. You deactivate a theme by simply activating another.

Make sure you don’t delete your own theme.

How to delete themes via FTP

First, you need to access your FTP.

Then go to wp-content and select the themes folder. Once you’ve selected it, on the right, click on the theme that you want to get rid of, right click on it and select Delete.

Delete WordPress theme via FTP

The example is made in cPanel, which is the most common control panel. It might look different for you, especially if you’re using a 3rd party software to access your FTP.

That’s a wrap

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