Updating

This document is for a version of Craft CMS that is no longer supported. Please refer to the latest version →

# One-click Updating

When an update is available, users with the permission to update Craft will see a badge in the control panel header. Clicking on that badge will take you to a page that shows the release notes of all the available updates.

You can get to that page at any time by clicking the “Check for updates” link in the control panel footer as well. Whenever you go to the page, whether Craft thinks updates are available or not, the page will clear its cache and re-check for available updates.

At the top of the page there is an “Update” button. Clicking that will initiate Craft’s self-updating process.

For one-click updates to work, your craft/app folder and all its enclosed files and folders must be writable. The exact permissions you should use depend on the relationship between the user that Apache/PHP is running as and the user who actually owns the craft/config folder.

Here are some recommended permissions depending on that relationship:

  • If they are the same user, use 744.
  • If they’re in the same group, then use 774.
  • Otherwise, use 777.

# Manually Updating

You can download the latest release in the format you prefer to work with:

Or click the menu button beside your “Update” button on the Updates page of your control panel, which will give you the zip file.

When the archive has finished downloading, you can manually update your Craft install by replacing the old craft/app/ folder with the new one.

If you’re manually updating a live site, we recommend you follow these instructions to minimize your site’s down time:

  1. Rename the craft/app/ folder in the release to app-new/.
  2. Upload craft/app-new/ to the craft folder on your server, alongside the old craft/app/ folder.
  3. Once app-new/ is done uploading, your FTP client may have uploaded the app-new/ folder with different permissions that what your craft/app/ folder currently has. If so, make sure app-new matches what craft/app/ currently has.
  4. Rename the old craft/app/ folder to craft/app-old/.
  5. Rename app-new/ to app/.
  6. Point your browser to your Craft control panel. If the update needs to run any new database migrations, you will be prompted to proceed with a database update. Click “Finish up” and let the database updates run.
  7. Delete the app-old/ folder.