A few days back I wrote an article about “how to test a WordPress theme without going live” which can be done by using a WordPress plugin. You would know that Theme Test Drive was very popular plugin for testing WordPress themes without activating them but unfortunately it’s now not available in WordPress plugin’s repository. In the meantime I found one of its best alternatives and the same I’m going to share with this article.
I thought many people would be searching for the best alternative to Theme Test Drive plugin as it’s now no more available so here I’m sharing the best Theme Test Drive alternative which is tested by me i.e WP Theme Test.
However, it’s not that popular and maybe you won’t find it in search engines but honestly I tried it and really impressed with its features. This is the reason I’m sharing it with this post.
How to Install & Use WP Theme Test Plugin
Go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Plugins > Add New. Now search for “wp theme test” and hit Enter. You can either download the plugin from WordPress Plugins Repository.
After installing and activating the plugin in your WordPress site, navigate to Appearance > WP Theme Test.
Here, turn on the Current State, choose the theme you want to test with and then choose the user whom you want to display the test theme (for example if you wanna test theme yourself and you’re admin, choose Administrator as your user role) and then click on Save button.
That’s all! Now, just you need to visit the website and you will see your site in the theme you’re testing. Don’t forget, while doing so you must be logged into your WordPress dashboard, because these changes will only be visible to logged in users and even specially to them whom you selected (such as subscriber, contributor, author, administrator etc.).
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By using this great WordPress plugin, you will be able to test different WordPress themes without going live. Only and only YOU will be able to see the changes.
How did you find this Theme Test Drive’s alternative? I think it’s much better than Theme Test Drive. Let me know if you have any problem in using WP Theme Test plugin.
Hi there,
thanks for the article.
WP Theme test hasn’t been updated for 2 years now.
Would you still recommend using it?
Thank you!
Seems that it does allow you to test your new theme but only has 2 options: Exit (and lose everything) or save and publish – which kind of does away with the point.
I was working changes to the theme that will take more than a day to customize and had a choice lose everything or go live.
Best option I found was to go live and then reactivate the old theme.
Theme Test Drive was a great plugin but this alternative also does the task well enough.