Quick Tip: WordPress Saves Your Widgets

Have you ever thought about switching your WordPress theme but then hesitated, wondering what might happen to your widgets? Although it may not be obvious, the good news is that WordPress remembers where you previously had your widgets and saves the settings. If you decide to revert back to your previous theme, WordPress will put your widgets back where they were.

As you can see in the screenshot, WordPress will even remind you of its widget saving capabilities when you switch to a new theme.

Back in the old days, if you switched your theme and then reverted it, you’d have to set all your widgets again, one by one. This could be quite a time consuming process if you had several widgetized areas loaded up with multiple widgets. In some cases this discouraged site owners from experimenting with different themes. That’s why widget saving is one of my favorite features of WordPress. Every time I see this feature reminder, I get a small thrill and I know I can rest easy when changing my theme.

WordPress has actually been saving your widgets since version 3.3 was released in December of 2011. It was a small feature but it makes a big difference when you’re testing new themes.