WordCamp US (WCUS) 2026 just wrapped up after 4 days at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Over 1,100 people from around the world registered to attend, and thousands more watched online through livestreams. Contributor Day and Showcase Day opened the week before two main conference days, featuring over 50 speaker-led sessions across 4 tracks, including multiple workshops.

The temperature reached 111°F (44°C), but golf carts ferried travelers between the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown and the convention center. Inside, attendees moved between session rooms, the Sponsor Hall, and the Happiness Bar.

It’s hot, but it’s not Florida hot.

– Loyal Pyczynski

Sessions covered artificial intelligence (AI), accessibility, publishing, business, site ownership, and the open web. Speakers in different rooms often found common ground, noting the importance of good judgment and trust-building in the age of AI.

Real Artists Ship

Contributor Day followed the motto “Real artists ship,” and a new format to match. The 425 participants, including 29 first-time contributors, formed 26 teams around goals they could complete that day. Experienced contributors moved between groups and helped newer participants shape goals. Then, goal owners gave 30-second pitches, and contributors could move between teams when that work caught their interest.

By day’s end, contributors had closed tickets, opened and shipped pull requests, and reviewed themes for accessibility. One team created description-list blocks for glossaries and product details, and another added email settings, a test tool, and checks for account, password-reset, and recovery messages.

Other teams built a Photo Directory importer and updated Notes in the WordPress dashboard and Multisite documentation. More work covered PHP, PHPUnit testing, and guidelines for AI work within the project. New contribution pathways became a course on Learn WordPress, open to people who could not be in Phoenix.

Every team ended the day with a 30-second presentation of what it had made, tested, fixed, or moved closer to release.

Showcase Day Put Real Sites First

If Contributor Day was about shipping in a day, Monday’s Showcase Day was about what happens after the shipping. Sites have to keep working smoothly for the people who publish, maintain, and depend on them. The case studies came from public services, independent publishers, community platforms, training systems, and large content operations.

Manny Costa covered the first of those: civic websites where residents find services, apply for programs, read emergency information, and report problems. In that work, accessibility, governance, and editor workflows are part of the service rather than a final check box.

Two of the case studies were about publishers taking back ownership of their content. Both sites now appear in the WordPress Showcase.

Nicola Catton’s session described how The Ankler moved 15 newsletters to WordPress and took direct control of its content, subscriber data, revenue rules, and reader experience. Nicola detailed the massive migration, the thousands of rebuilt paywall boundaries, and the site’s brand-new block theme.

The Daily Kos migration was a similarly large-scale move. Ben Greeley and Allison McHenry centered their session on a community that writes as well as reads: 1.5 million posts, 88 million comments, and 2.7 million users, with a public beta that involved more than 500 community members.

Other sessions dealt with the people who do the publishing once a site is live. In Aviral Mittal’s session, an AI agent built a page from a Google Doc using patterns the team had already defined. Andrew Adam described a library of about 100 written and video guides, with accessibility guidance included. Shared foundations covered repeat questions, while project-specific help and tips inside the editor handled the rest.

Human Judgment in the Loop

Early on, Bo English-Wiczling had opened Showcase Day by addressing the gap between rapid AI adoption and trust. Her keynote covered the move in developer work toward setting intent and supplying context.

AI doesn’t remove your work. It moves it.

– Bo English-Wiczling

A first draft can now arrive in seconds, but an almost-right block of code may still miss keyboard navigation, use the wrong theme styles, or bring an unsafe dependency into a project.

The importance of good judgment is familiar to the WordPress community. Bo tied it to habits WordPress contributors already have: reading other people’s code, submitting small changes, reviewing pull requests, and accepting critique in the open.

The next morning, Loyal Pyczynski drew on his work at Disney and Meta for a keynote about tests, time, and creative confidence. His talk returned to a phrase from an Imagineering colleague.

We need to make sure that we make better mistakes tomorrow. Success is an iterative endeavor, and time is our most precious resource.

– Loyal Pyczynski

Loyal described Disney teams that paired creative and technical leads early, then brought in experts for work another team could do better or faster. The goal was not to know everything but to know what the team should own.

Design and publishing sessions drew similar conclusions as the keynotes. Michelle Hunt framed design systems as living feedback systems that need to preserve intent as production gets faster.

K Adam White’s session centered on moving large stores of content into block patterns, with editors staying involved where automatic conversion still needed judgment. Nik McLaughlin’s Abilities API session looked beyond AI integrations to the broader structure the API gives WordPress developers. Brian Coords made a related case through block themes: approved patterns, templates, and real content offer a starting point, and design tokens add guidance that a blank-page prompt cannot provide.

Machine translation got the same treatment. In a multilingual WordPress multisite case study of AI translation for technical content, native-speaking colleagues found output that was correct word by word and could still miss the intended meaning. Human review covered the gap between translating language and translating intent.

The judgment question even reached hiring. The Making of a WordPress Certification introduced a standards-based certification and covered how the credential was created, checked, governed, and delivered.

Trust Becomes a Product Practice

Wednesday morning took the trust question outside the WordPress world. The day opened with a fireside chat between Amanda Ventura of Waymo and David Levine on what it takes for people to trust technology that moves through their streets.

Ventura described trust as repeated work. Teams can publish safety data and listen before arriving in a new city, and they need a path for product teams to act on feedback. Her example came from accessibility testing. Screen-reader support helped blind and low-vision riders use the Waymo app, but it did not solve the physical problem of finding the right car. Feedback led to step-by-step directions and a horn control with a distinct musical tone that was easier to identify on busy city streets.

Other sessions applied that standard to WordPress sites. WordPress Core committer Jonathan Desrosiers focused on supply-chain safety while Robert Abela’s session explored login security. AI tools can find security flaws faster than ever. That speed raises the need for careful checks.

The rest of Wednesday’s schedule included sessions on security, accessibility, design, AI tools, and work for site owners.

• Kathy Zant’s session proposed an audit for AI use, covering plugins, themes, content pipelines, and client sites, and it named consent, data location, disclosure, and legal review as questions teams should settle before launch.
• Another case-based session compared two responses to navigation problems: one client received an AI search tool, and another received a predictable interface that editors could control. The planned lesson was simple. AI can be the right choice without being the automatic choice.
• Joseph LoPreste’s session explored accessibility work no single plugin can complete: navigation, forms, headings, images, content, and interactive elements.

Learning With Your Laptop Open

WordPress beginner workshops ran throughout the event for first-time builders, with no hosting account or prior WordPress experience required. Participants made pages, posts, logos, and menus, and each person left with a WordPress site, a year of hosting, and a domain. These sessions laid groundwork to work with plugins, styles, and additional features. The beginner program, office hours, and Happiness Bar gave people several places to ask questions and get hands-on experience.

More advanced technical workshops offered even experts the chance to hone their skills.

• Łukasz Wilczak focused on reusable WP-CLI commands. They handled bulk content changes, block and shortcode migrations, link cleanup, and safe batch processing.
• Vedanshu Jain designed a workshop around roles and review paths for AI-only teams. The planned outputs included a plugin stub, publishable content, or another real result.
• Rob Ruiz built his workshop around WP Rig and automatic checks for preparing block-ready themes for the Theme Directory.

Like all WordCamps, these sessions gave attendees skills and tools to bring home to their own projects.

Simplicity Gets the Last Word

The closing session started with city business. Michael Hammett, Phoenix’s first Chief Innovation Officer, read a proclamation from Mayor Kate Gallego declaring August 19 Phoenix WordPress Day, and then presented the signed document to WordPress Cofounder, Matt Mullenweg. The proclamation credited WordPress with supporting the small businesses, developers, designers, educators, and creators in the city’s growing digital and creative economy.

What followed was a dynamic presentation and conversation between Mullenweg and Robert Jacobi, ending with a traditional Q&A. Matt’s thesis was simple: Tech needs to be simpler.

I want WordPress to be known for simplicity, not just complexity.

– Matt Mullenweg

After a detour through why AI models now prefer simple, self-contained HTML files, the argument became tangible with WordPress Piplets, a 2007 idea built around a single self-modifying PHP file that stores its own data, with no database and no third-party packages. One file can hold up to 25 megabytes, about four million words, and load in about 50 milliseconds. For Mullenweg, it extends the experiments that took WordPress from MySQL to SQLite to Playground, and he floated the idea of a WordPress.org directory where people could publish, fork, and remix.

Speaking of WordPress.org, it was announced that profile links are getting shorter, with w.org/username redirects like w.org/@matt already live, with full support just a few days away.

Midway through, release leads were called up to press the button on the WordPress 7.1 release, and were awarded with applause as “Mary Lou” received hundreds of thousands of downloads.

On contribution, Mullenweg expressed his desire to reward impact instead of pledges. The Five for the Future directory shows two million self-sponsored hours pledged each week from 150,000 contributors, and he questioned whether that reflects reality. The project already records what actually happened (commits, posts, tickets closed, WordCamps organized), and he wants recognition built on that record. He asked the same of the plugin directory, suggesting a focus on fewer better-working things.

Audience questions covered AI licensing, data centers, and why open source communities compete more than they collaborate. On that last one, Mullenweg invited other open source leaders to speak at WordCamp, and encouraged working together. Copying good code between projects, he said, is the entire point of open source.

Jacobi closed by asking who was at their first WordCamp; he had met more first-timers here, he said, than in the past ten years. One of them found the event by asking an AI chatbot for the coolest thing happening in Phoenix, came to Contributor Day, and left with one of its awards.

Beyond the Session Rooms

So much happens outside the session rooms. At the WCUS Happiness Bar, volunteers sat with attendees and worked through plugin questions, CSS problems, ecommerce setup, and new-site questions. An AFK (Away From Keyboard) room offered a quiet place away from the crowds. In the Sponsor Hall, people painted Wapuus with a local Phoenix artist, watched screen-printing, and talked between product demonstrations.

The Connect art installation used photographs from the WordPress Photo Directory. Forty postcards paired images by contributors who may never have met. Color, composition, or subject linked each pair. Attendees could take several cards and a blank one, then add a connection of their own.

Lunch did something simpler. People changed tables, picked up open seats, and started conversations with one question: “What do you do with WordPress?”

Organizers and volunteers kept four days of rooms, shuttles, meals, and livestreams moving. Thank you to them, and to the speakers, sponsors, contributors, attendees in Phoenix, and everyone watching online.

What Comes Next

If you missed this year’s WordCamp US, you can find recordings of sessions on us.WordCamp.org/2026/. Be sure to sign up for email notifications, so you don’t miss out next year. Next stop, State of the Word, followed by WordCamp Asia 2027 in Penang, Malaysia, and WordCamp Europe 2027 in Málaga, Spain.

Photo credits: Jaron Quach, Emily Chan, Wini Lao, Kendra Stowe, and
Jennifer Swisher

Each WordPress release celebrates an artist who has made an indelible mark on the world of music. WordPress 7.1, code-named “Mary Lou,” honors pioneering jazz pianist, arranger, and composer Mary Lou Williams.

A child prodigy who began playing publicly at six, her influence and work cut across nearly every major era of jazz, moving through swing, bebop, and sacred jazz. Through all of it, she kept reinventing her own sound. In the 1940s, she turned her Harlem apartment into a nightly workshop where Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell came to trade ideas and shape bebop itself. That combination of reinvention and collaboration inspired WordPress 7.1.

Let the range of Mary Lou’s music carry you through everything 7.1 offers.

Welcome to WordPress 7.1!

WordPress 7.1 is built around how you work: navigating the admin, controlling your designs, collaborating with others, and building what you want. The admin bar now follows you across the entire admin experience, putting the tools you need within reach, whether you’re writing a post or editing your site’s design. Built-in responsive styling, added to the current show/hide options for blocks, means you can ensure your site looks exactly how you want across screen sizes, without custom CSS. A new media editor keeps the familiar Crop button entry point, and brings freeform and aspect-ratio cropping, horizontal and vertical flipping, fine-grained and snap rotation, and metadata editing into one dedicated workflow. Leave Notes anywhere in your content—no longer limited to the block level. Rich text support and @mentions make it easier to collaborate with others as you write. Two new blocks, Playlist and Tabs, as well as a new API to register your own set of icons for the Icon block, give you even more flexibility to build what you want without additional plugins. These are just the highlights! Read on to see everything WordPress 7.1 has to offer.

What’s inside

There’s a lot packed into WordPress 7.1 across new styling tools, updated media flows, added Notes functionality, and more. Some changes add new capabilities, while others refine existing tools and workflows.

Here’s a closer look at what’s new in this release, starting with the release video:

Apply responsive styles

Style your content your way, on every screen.

WordPress 7.1 brings more responsive controls directly into the Site Editor. Style how a block looks at different screen sizes from Global Styles or in individual block settings, without custom CSS. You can also preview your changes at different viewport sizes as you work, making it straightforward to build layouts that adapt to the way people browse the web.

Admin bar, now in every editor

Consistent navigation, from dashboard to editor.

The WordPress admin bar now stays with you as you move across all editors, so you always know where you are and have easy access to familiar tools. The admin bar also features some small visual updates to more fully polish the experience. 

A new way to crop

One dedicated workflow for editing your images.

A new media editor modal replaces the previous inline cropping tool, bringing together freeform and aspect-ratio cropping, horizontal and vertical flipping, precise rotation control, and metadata editing together in one place. The familiar Crop button still gets you there.

Inline notes with mentions and rich text

More ways to leave feedback.

Notes now support rich text and mentions, making it easier to leave clear feedback and loop in the right people. Format your Notes with bold, italic, and code, add links, or type @ to mention a collaborator and notify them.

You can also leave a note on a specific piece of text instead of just an entire block, keep multiple conversations going on the same block, and collapse longer notes to keep the margin tidy. It’s built for the back-and-forth that happens when people review content together.

Improved media handling

Faster, more flexible image processing.

Image compression, resizing, and thumbnail generation now happen in the browser, reducing server load and producing smaller files — without hitting PHP memory limits or upload timeouts.

Media handling in 7.1 also includes native support for AVIF, HEIC, and HDR gain maps, adding native support for the image formats modern cameras and phones already produce.

Enhanced details and new blocks

WordPress 7.1 also adds two new blocks, along with more ways to customize how content looks and behaves.

Create playlists

Bring multiple audio tracks together in one playlist, with an optional waveform that gives listeners a visual sense of each track as it plays.

Customize responsive breakpoints

Block themes can now define their own mobile and tablet breakpoints in theme.json, overriding the defaults for responsive styles and block visibility.

Organize with tabs

Organize content into tabbed panels instead of showing everything at once—a cleaner way to present related information without crowding your content.

Add custom icons

Developers can extend WordPress’s icon library with their own collections, making custom icons available throughout the editor alongside the built-in library.

Set interactive styles

Give Button blocks distinct styles for hover, focus, and active states directly in the editor’s style controls. Set the styles for just one button or all buttons.

A more consistent editing experience

The post editor is now fully iframed for all themes, matching the Site Editor.

The editing canvas runs separately from the WordPress admin interface, so admin styles don’t interfere with your content. Viewport-relative units and media queries now target the editing canvas directly, so responsive layouts behave more predictably as you build. The change is mostly invisible, but the result is a more reliable and consistent editor.

Developer’s toolbox

Advanced tools for building your way.

WordPress 7.1 expands several of the APIs and tools developers use to build on WordPress, with new options for icons, automation, admin interfaces, and responsive styling.

The SVG Icon API is now a public API, allowing developers to register their own icon collections and icons and use them throughout the editor with functions such as wp_register_icon_collection(), wp_register_icon(), and wp_get_icon().

The Abilities API builds on the infrastructure introduced in WordPress 6.9 with a filterable execution lifecycle, custom validation, and shared discovery. These additions make it easier to build integrations and automation on top of WordPress, including AI-powered tooling.

A new Design System provides foundational support for theming WordPress admin interfaces, including color, roundness, and cursor styles. Developers can use semantic design tokens and the ThemeProvider React component to bring more consistency to custom admin interfaces while still feeling at home in WordPress.

Theme authors also get responsive styling and pseudo-state styling for hover, focus, focus-visible, and active states through theme.json, along with new filters for configuring the DataViews and DataForm screens that power Pages, Templates, Parts, and Patterns in the Site Editor.

Accessibility

WordPress 7.1 continues to improve accessibility across WordPress Core and the editor. New wp_get_tooltip() and wp_get_toggletip() functions bring accessible tooltips to more areas of the WordPress admin, including post meta boxes and the login screen.

Screen reader support also improves across admin interfaces, with clearer labeling and more predictable navigation in post list tables. The new Tab and Playlist blocks, along with improvements to editor navigation and interaction, add to the broader accessibility work included in this release.

Together, these changes continue to make WordPress easier to navigate and use for more people.

Performance improvements

Image compression, resizing, and thumbnail generation now run in the browser (via a WebAssembly build of libvips), reducing the processing load on your server and helping avoid memory limits and timeouts with larger uploads.

Opt-in GIF-to-video conversion produces typically smaller files, while upload progress indicators and automatic retries make uploads more resilient when connections drop.

The Media Library now uses infinite scrolling by default, with a per-user option to return to pagination. Speculative loading defaults can now be set through environment variables or constants, so hosts and site owners can configure how WordPress prefetches pages without writing a plugin.

And much more!

For a comprehensive overview of everything new and improved in WordPress 7.1, visit the feature showcase website.

Learn more about WordPress 7.1

Learn WordPress is a free resource for new and experienced WordPress users.  Learn is stocked with how-to videos on using various features in WordPress, interactive workshops for exploring topics in-depth, and lesson plans for diving deep into specific areas of WordPress.

Read the WordPress 7.1 Release Notes for information on installation, enhancements, fixed issues, release contributors, learning resources, and the list of file changes.

Explore the WordPress 7.1 Field Guide.  Learn about the changes in this release with detailed developer notes to help you build with WordPress.

The 7.1 release squad

Every release comes to you from a dedicated team of enthusiastic contributors who help keep things on track and moving smoothly. The team that has led 7.1 is a cross-functional group of contributors who are always ready to champion ideas, remove blockers, and resolve issues.

• Release Lead: Anne McCarthy
• Release Coordination: Benjamin Zekavica, Krupa Nanda
• Tech Leads: Aki Hamano, Joe Dolson
• Triage Leads: Adrian Duffell, Sajjad Hossain Sagor, Sergey Biryukov
• Test Leads: Huzaifa Al Mesbah, Nikunj Hatkar

Thank you, contributors

The mission of WordPress is to democratize publishing and embody the freedoms that come with open source.  A global and diverse community of people collaborating to strengthen the software supports this effort.

WordPress 7.1 reflects the tireless efforts and passion of more than 800 contributors from all over the world. This release also welcomed over 170 first-time contributors! 

Together, their work delivered more than 1500 enhancements and fixes, helping make WordPress 7.1 a stable and polished release for everyone. It’s another great example of what the WordPress open source community can accomplish when people come together to build, test, and improve the software

1shiharaT · Aagam Shah · Aakash Verma · Aaron D. Campbell · Aaron Jorbin · Aaron Robertshaw · Abdalsalaam Halawa · Abdullah Ramzan · Abdur Rahman Emon · Abhishek Kumar · Achal Jain · Adam Silverstein · Adam Wood · Adam Zieliński · Adi Moldovan · adithyanaik · Aditya Singh · Adrian Duffell · adrmf25 · agulbra · Ahmed · Ahmed Kabir Chaion · ahuseyn · Aki Hamano · Akshat Kakkad · Alain Schlesser · Alan Jacob Mathew · Albert Juhé Lluveras · Alec Geatches · Alex Concha · Alex Cuadra · Alex Kirk · Alex Stine · alhrath · allilevine · Alvaro Gómez · Amber Hinds · Aminul Islam Alvi · Amit Joel · Amit Raj · Amjad Ali · Amy Kamala · Anastis Sourgoutsidis · Anders Norén · Andrea Fercia · Andrea Grassi · Andrea Roenning · Andrei Draganescu · Andrej Mernik · Andrew Duthie · Andrew Matia · Andrew Ozz · Andrew Serong · André Maneiro · Andy Fragen · Andy Meerwaldt · Anh Tran · Ankit K Gupta · Ankit Kumar Shah · Ankit Panchal · Ankit Patel · Anne McCarthy · Anne-Mieke Bovelett · Anthony Hortin · Anukasha Singh · Anup Kankale · Anveshika Srivastava · aperto · arcangelini · Ari Stathopoulos · Arischvaran Puvanesvaran · Arkaprabha Chowdhury · Armand MD · Arshid · Arthur Chu · Artur Piszek · Ashar Fuadi · aslushnikov · aswasif007 · atomiks · Aurooba Ahmed · avcascade · ayaz ahmed · ayushhoff · Azhar Ali · Azhar Deraiya · Azragh · BackuPs · Baikare Sandip · Barry · Bart Kalisz · Bayejid Ahmed · Ben Dwyer · Benedikt Ledl · Benjamin Grolleau · Benjamin Zekavica · Benoit Chantre · Bernie Reiter · Bero · bigdigital · Bigul Malayi · Birgir Erlendsson (birgire) · Birgit Pauli-Haack · Blake Bertuccelli-Booth · bluefuton · bobbingwide · Boro Sitnikovski · brad hogan · Brad Jorsch · bradshawtm · brajdas0022 · Brandon Hubbard · Brandon Kraft · Brandon Payton · brbrr · Brian Alexander · Brian Coords · Brian Gardner · Brian Haas · Brian Henry · Brian Hogg · Bridget Willard · brnhrst · Burhan Nasir · burnuser · Béryl de La Grandière · C83 · Camila Rayza Mendoza Vargas · Carlos Bravo · Carolina Nymark · CAT the Tech · cbirdsong · ccprog · cgastrell · Chad Chadbourne · Charalampos Papazoglou · Chillifish · Chouby · Chris David Miles · Chris Gresham-Britt · Chris Huber · Chris Lilitsas · Chris M. - a11n · Chris Zarate · chriscct7 · Christoph Daum · Chuck Grimmett · Ciprian Popescu · Clément Polito · Code Amp · codesmith32 · Cody · cogdesign · ColinD · collinr3 · Corey Worrell · Courtney Robertson · Cris Busquets · csabarakasz · cweiske · Dakota Chichester · Damianne P (a11n) · Damon Cook · Dan Luu · Dan Zakirov · Dani Guardiola · Daniel Bachhuber · Daniel Richards · dannyreaktiv · Darin Kotter · Darren Ethier (nerrad) · Darshit Rajyaguru · Dave Whitley · David Aguilera · David Arenas · David Baumwald · David Biňovec · David Bowman · David Cavins · David Levine · David Shanske · David Smith · David Stone · Dean Sas · Deepak Gupta · Deepak Kumar · Deepak Prajapati · Deepak Rohilla · Denis Žoljom · Dennis Heiden · Dennis Ploetner · Dennis Snell · deoladev · Deryck · Devanshi Joshi · Devasheesh Kaul · Dharmesh Patel · Dhaval Kapadane · Dhrumil Kumbhani · Dhruvang21 · Dhruvik Malaviya · diegogarciarodrigues · Dion Hulse · dlind1 · Dominik Schilling · Douglas Henri · Drew Jaynes · Drivingralle · Dávid Szabó · eclev91 · Edith Allison · efc · Ehtisham Siddiqui · eishanoor · ekaterina92 · elfu98 · Eliot Akira · elizaan36 · Ella van Durpe · Ellen Bauer · Emmanuel Atsé · Enej Bajgorić · Eoin Savage · Eric · Eric Michel · Erick Wambua · Eshaan Dabasiya · Esteban · Estela Rueda · eurello · Evan Herman · Fabian Kaegy · Faisal Ahammad · Fakhri Azzouz · Felipe Velzani · Felix Arntz · Fernando Perrella · Fernando Tellado · Filippo Di Trapani · firdaus666 · Florence ANDROLUS · Francisco Leiton · Francisco Vera · Ga Satrya · Gabor Lippert · Gajendra Singh · galaxor · galois44 · Gareth Elwell · Garrett Hyder · Gary Jones · Gary Pendergast · Gaurang Sondagar · Gautam Garg · Gautam Mehta · Gaël Bonithon · Generosus · George Mamadashvili · Germán · gierand · gilmoursa · Glen Davies · Gopal Krishnan · Greg Ziółkowski · gregbenz · griffithchen · gschoppe · gubser · Guillaume G. · Gulamdastgir Momin · gusgomezpg · Gustavo Hilario · H. Adam Lenz · Habibur Rahman · hanneslsm · Hans-Gerd Gerhards · Hareesh S · Harish Tewari · harshbhonsle08 · Hasmukh Khemchandbhai Mistry · Hasnain Ashfaq · Haz · Henrique Iamarino · Hidekazu Ishikawa · Hilay Trivedi · Himanshu Pathak · Hit Bhalodia · Hrohh · Hugo · humanify · Huzaifa Al Mesbah · Héctor Prieto · iamchughmayank · iamraju · ianmjones · Ibrahim Riaz · iflairwebtechnologies · Indira Biswas · Iqbal Hossain · irozum · Isabel Brison · Ishika Bansal · Ishita · itsdavidmorgan · Jacob Smith · Jacopo Marrone (@tresorama) · Jadav Sanjay · jakeparis · jakub300 · James · James Giroux · James Koster · James LePage · James Monroe · Jamie Burchell · janpaulkleijn · Jarda Snajdr · jarekmorawski · jarodortegaaraya · Jason Adams · Jason Kenison · Jason Kytros · Jason LeMahieu (MadtownLems) · Javier Arce · Javier Casares · javorszky · Jay McPartland · Jaydip · Jean-Baptiste Audras · Jean-Sébastien Mansart · Jeff Chi · Jeffrey Carandang · Jeffrey de Wit · Jeffrey Paul · jeflopo · Jenny Dupuy · Jeremy Felt · Jeremy Herve · Jeremy Ward · jeryj · Jessica Lyschik · jigangz · Jigar Bhanushali · Jigar Kahar · Jigar Panchal · Jignesh Bhavani · jillq · jimgrey · Jina Parekh · JiveDig · jjlmoya · jnbg · Job a11n · Joe Dolson · Joe Fusco · Joe Hoyle · Joe Maller · Joe McGill · Joen Asmussen · Johannes Jülg · John · John Blackbourn · John Hooks · John James Jacoby · John Parris · John Watkins · Jon Surrell · Jonathan Bossenger · Jonathan Desrosiers · Jonny Harris · Joost de Valk · jordesign · Jorge Costa · Jos Velasco · Jose Varghese · Joseph Scott · Joshua Dwire · Joshua Wold · joshualipstone · Juanfra Aldasoro · JuanMa Garrido · Julie Moynat · Juliette Reinders Folmer · Justin Tadlock · K. Adam White · Kamran Abdul Aziz · Kamrul Hasan · kannanravi · Kapil Paul · Karan Makani · Karin Christen · Karthick · Karthikeya Bethu · katag9k · Kathryn Presner · Kausar Alam · Kaushik Domadiya · Kavit Trivedi · Kavya Gokul · Kelly Choyce-Dwan · Kelly Hoffman · keoshi · Kerry Liu · Kevin Fodness · Kevin Robles Gamboa · Khokan Sardar · Khokan Sardar · Khushal Sain S · Khushi Patel · Kim Coleman · Kira Schroder · KJ Roelke · Kjell Reigstad · Kleis Auke Wolthuizen · Knut Sparhell · Koen Van den Wijngaert · KokkieH · Konstantin Obenland · Kostas Vrouvas · Krupa Nanda · Krystian · kuber8821 · kubiq · Kushagra Goyal · Kyle Mott · Lakshyajeet Singh Goyal · Lance Willett · landwire · leemon · Lena Morita · levinmedia · liaison · Lisa Canini · Lisa Schuyler · LOOS · Louis Wolmarans · Lucas Mendes · lucasbustamante · Lucian R. · Ludwig You · Luigi Teschio · Luis Martins · luisdavid01 · luisherranz · luismulinari · Luke Carbis · mabdelbari · Madhavi Shah · madhazelnut · Madhu Dollu · Maggie Cabrera · Mahammad Darvishov · MahdiAli Khanusiya · Mahesh Patel · Mainul Hassan · Mainul Kabir Aion · Makarand Mane · maksymmamontov · Malay Ladu · manfcarlo · Manhar Barot · Manish Dhorepatil · Manuel Camargo · Manzoor Wani · Marc · Marco Ciampini · Marcus · Marcus Kazmierczak · Marin Atanasov · Mario Santos · Marius L. J. · Mariusz Szatkowski · Mark Howells-Mead · Mark Uraine · Marko Ivanovic · Marty Helmick · Mary Hubbard · Maryam Sultana · Mateus Machado Luna · Matheus Zimmermann Galdino · mathijsvdbeek · Matias Benedetto · Matias Ventura · Matt Mullenweg · Matt Shaw · mattbolt · Matthew Boynes · Max Schmeling · maximebj · Mayank Tripathi · Md Abul Bashar · MD ISMAIL · Md Rashedul Islam Chowdhury (Ric) · Md. Aminul Islam · mdviralsampat · Mehraz Morshed · mehtadev · Mehul Gohil · mgol · Micha? Dudak · Michael Adams (mdawaffe) · Michael Etokakpan · Michael Iseard · Michael James Ilett · Michal Iwanow · Miguel Fonseca · Miguel Lezama · Miguel Torres · Mikael Korpela · Mike Jolley · Mike Selander · Mikey Binns · Mikin Chauhan · Milana Cap · Milind More · mimi · Minal Diwan · Mir Monoarul Alam · Miroku · Mitchell Austin · Mohammad Jangda · Mohammad Risad · Mohammad Rockeybul Alam · Mohammed Kateregga · Mohammed Noumaan Ahamed · Mohd Salman · Mohit Sharma · Moksha Shah · Monzur Alam · Moses Cursor Ssebunya · mrwweb · Mukesh Panchal · Mukesh Parihar · Mustafa Bharmal · mutuajose · MythThrazz · Nabhishek Singh · nadabulija · Naman Khare · NANI SAMIREDDY · Naresh Bheda · Nate Finch · Nathan Rodrigues · Nazmul Asif · Nazmul Hosen · Nebojša Jurčić · Ned Zimmerman · nendeb · Nick Diego · Nick Halsey · Nick Murray · nickpagz · nickthegeek · nicolasalarconrapela · nicsevic · Nik Tsekouras · Nikul Valani · Nikunj Hatkar · Nilambar Sharma · Nilesh Shiragave · Niluthpal Purkayastha · Nimesh · Nirav Sherasiya · Noah Allen · Noelle Ackermann · Noruzzaman · notnownikki · obliviousharmony · oldenwilde · Olga Gleckler · OllieJones · Omar Alshaker · onetrev · Ov3rfly · Ozgur Sar · Paal Joachim Romdahl · Pablo Honey · Pamela Ribeiro · pankaj.sakaria · Parin Panjari · Parth vataliya · Pascal Birchler · Patrick Lumumba · patrickwclanden · Paul Bearne · Paul Biron · Paul Kevan · paulgibbs · Paulo Trentin · Pavan Patil · pavelevap · pavloborysenko · Pedro Figueroa · Peter Wilson · petermolnar · petitphp · Phil Johnston · philhoyt · physalis · Pieterjan Deneys · Piyush Patel · poligilad · pontocinza · Pooja Kakkad · porg · postphotos · Prachi Garg · Pradeep Pasam · Praful Patel · prajapatvishnu · Pranjal Pratap Singh · pranjal4804 · Prasad Karmalkar · Prashant Baldha · Prathamesh Bhagat · Pratik Jain · Pratik Nawkar · Pravin Karmur · Prem Tiwari · Presskopp · Priyanka Gusani · ProjektIsle · Q · Rachel · Rafael Della · Rafael Funchal · Rafał Gazda · Rahul Kumar · Rahul Tank · Rajdip Tank · Rajesh C · Rajin Sharwar · Rakeesh Falke · Rami Yushuvaev · Ramon Corrales · Ramon James · Ravi Chudasama · Ravi Gadhiya · Ravi Khadka · Rejaul Alom Khan · Renatho · reneyap · retrofox · Rezwan Shiblu · Riad Benguella · Rian Rietveld · Rich Tabor · Rinkal Pagdar · Rishabh Gupta · Rishit Gupta · RITHESH S · Ritoban · Robeen · Robert Anderson · Robert Ghetau · Robert Jolly · robertabela · Roberto Aranda · Rodrigo Primo · Rohit Mathur · Rolf Allard van Hagen · Rolle Laukkarinen · Rolly Bueno · ronakganatra9 · Roshni Ahuja · Rushikesh More · Rutvik Savsani · Ruud · Ryan · Ryan Welcher · Saad Ur Rehman · Sabbir Ahmed · Sabbir Hossain · SACHINRAJ CP · Sagar Deshmukh · Sagar Jadhav · SAHIL NAZIR · Sainath Poojary · Sajjad Hossain Sagor · Saksham Sharma · Sam · Sampat Viral · Sana Yasir · Sandip Sinh · sandipmaurya2611 · SAndrew · Sanket Parmar · Sanyogg Shelar · Sarah Norris · Sarath E · Sarosh Aga · Sarthak Nagoshe · Saul Fougnier · saulirajala · Saulius Vikerta · Saulo Padilha · Saxon Fletcher · Scott Kingsley Clark · Scott Reilly · Sergey Biryukov · Seth Rubenstein · Shail Mehta · Shailesh Gajare · Shane Muirhead · Shashank Shekhar · Shatrughan Myatra · shaunandrews · Shazzad Hossain Khan · shekharnwagh · Sheri Grey · Shreya Shrivastava · Shreyas Ikhar · Sidhant Tomar · siliconforks · Simon Duduica · Simon Wämmerfors · simonhammes · slackticus · slywy · smerriman · Sneha Patil · Snehal Kashid · Soham Patel · Sonali Prajapati · Sorin · Sourav Pahwa · Soyeb Salar · spacergif · speedwheel · Sphere Plugins · sruthi89 · SteelWagstaff · Stefan Pasch · Stefan Velthuys · Stephen Bernhardt · Steve Dufresne · Steve Jones · Steven Lin · Steven Ryan · strarsis · styankov · Sukhendu Sekhar Guria · Sumit Bagthariya · Sumit Singh · Suryakant Upadhyay · Swanand M · swapnil1010 · Sybre Waaijer · Synchro · szandman · Sérgio Gomes · Sören Wünsch · Taco Verdonschot · tainacan · Taisa - Raquel García Arévalo · Takashi Irie · Takashi Kitajima · Takshil Kunadia · Tammie Lister · tbclark3 · Terence Eden · Tetsuya Imamura · thelmachido a11n · thinkaquamarine · This Is My URL · threadi · Thrive Engine · tibi.buzdugan · Tim Nicholson · Timi Wahalahti · Timothy Jacobs · Tobias Bäthge · Tobias Zimpel · tobifjellner (Tor-Bjorn “Tobi” Fjellner) · Tom Rhodes · Tomoki Shimomura · Tonya Mork · Toro_Unit (Hiroshi Urabe) · TorontoDigits · tpaw · tratnikm · Troy Chaplin · Tung Du · Tushar Bharti · Tushar Patel · Ugyen Dorji · Umesh Nevase · up1512001 · upadalavipul · Utsav Ladani · Vara Rahul Rajana · Vedansh Mishra · Vedant Ere · Vedant Gandhi · Velda · vgnavada · Vicente Canales · Viktor Szépe · Vincent Bodart · Vinit · Vishit Shah · vishnu prajapat · vivekawsm · vortfu · Vraja Das · Vrishabh Jasani · WebMan Design | Oliver Juhas · webVerts · Weston Ruter · whaze · Will Skora · williampatton · wongjn · WPExplorer · wpsoul · xate · Xavier Borderie · xavilc · xerpa43 · Xristopher Anderton · Yan · Yash Jawale · Yogesh Bhutkar · Yui · Yuliyan Slavchev · Yusuf Mudagal · Zebulan Stanphill · Znuff

More than 20 locales have fully translated WordPress 7.1 into their language making this one of the most translated releases ever on day one. Community translators are working hard to ensure more translations are on their way. Thank you to everyone who helps make WordPress available in 200+ languages.

Last but not least, thanks to the volunteers who contribute to the support forums by answering questions from WordPress users worldwide.

Get involved

Participation in WordPress goes far beyond coding. And learning more and getting involved is easy. Discover the teams that come together to Make WordPress and use this interactive tool to help you decide which is right for you.

By default, the admin bar sits at the top of every page you view while signed in to WordPress, keeping the dashboard, the editor, and your profile within reach. That convenience carries a cost: the bar occupies the viewport, so the page on screen is never quite the page a visitor sees. On sites doing more interesting things with the viewport, such as sticky headers or scroll-driven effects, it can introduce artifacts that send you hunting for a bug that is not there. Further, the admin bar can sometimes grow unwieldy as plugins add their own features and shortcuts to it. Switching it off in your profile settings trades one problem for another, because the shortcuts leave with it.

That problem was the spark for the creation of the WordPress Browser Extension. The extension hides the admin bar on the sites you choose, or everywhere by default, and keeps the most commonly used shortcuts one click away. Bringing the full bar back takes two clicks and no trip to the dashboard. What began as a fix for that one tradeoff grew into something broader: a way to recognize WordPress wherever you find it on the web, to jump into your own sites from anywhere, and to carry a small set of tools for testing and review.

As you browse, the toolbar icon shows whether the current site runs WordPress and whether you are signed in, without being obtrusive. On a site you manage, opening the extension reveals shortcuts to the dashboard or to the editor for the exact post, page, taxonomy, or template in view, including template-backed pages that open in the Site Editor on block themes. A locally stored launcher remembers the sites you sign in to, so they stay available even when you are somewhere else entirely.

A few tools also turn out to be a better fit for the browser than for a WordPress plugin. The extension can draw block boundaries over the rendered page, open a phone-sized preview window, reload with cache busting, or clear cookies and local storage for the site you are on. Some of that is hard to do from inside a site, and none of it requires a plugin or any other software installation, so the same tools are available on every WordPress site you visit.

All of this happens on your device. The extension reads the page in front of it to work out what it is looking at, and when it needs more than the page can tell it, it asks the site. Your preferences, and the list of sites you sign in to, stay in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere else, and there is no tracking or analytics of any kind.

The extension began as an independent project and became an official project with active support from Matt Mullenweg. Notable contributors include Fabian Kägy, a core contributor and colleague at Fueled (formerly 10up), who helped shape much of its early design and architecture, and Khokan Sardar who contributed multiple patches. Several other Fueled colleagues provided comprehensive testing and influenced its final shape.

You can follow along with its development on its GitHub repository, where bug reports and pull requests are welcome.

WordPress 7.0.4 is now available which features a security fix. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately.

You can update to WordPress 7.0.4 by downloading it from WordPress.org, or visiting your site’s Dashboard → Updates and clicking Update Now. Sites that support automatic background updates will begin updating shortly.

For more information, please visit the WordPress 7.0.4 HelpHub site.

Security update included in this release

The security team would like to thank the team at pwn.ai for responsibly reporting the following vulnerability and allowing it to be fixed in this release:

• Authenticated Author+ remote code execution via malicious file upload on sites that use Imagick and Ghostscript.

Backports

As a courtesy, these fixes are being backported through to the 4.7 branch and the 7.1 RC3 release that’s due later today. As a reminder, only the most recent version of WordPress is actively supported. The backports are in progress and will ship as they become ready.

CVE and GHSA references

Further details can be found in the advisory: CVE-2026-65640 / GHSA-8vr3-7mxf-gx8w.

Thank you to these WordPress contributors

This release was led by John Blackbourn, with significant input from Dennis Snell and Jeremy Felt. In addition, WordPress 7.0.4 and its backports would not have been possible without the valuable contributions of the following people:

Aaron D. Campbell, Aaron Jorbin, Adam Silverstein, Aki Hamano, Alex Concha, Barry, Dennis Snell, Ehtisham Siddiqui, Jeremy Felt, John Blackbourn, Jon Surrell, Jonathan Desrosiers, Lance Willett, Marin Atanasov, Mohammad Jangda, Sergey Biryukov, vortfu, Weston Ruter, and representatives from WP Engine.

WordPress 7.0.3 is now available which features several security fixes. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately.

You can update to WordPress 7.0.3 by downloading it from WordPress.org, or visiting your site’s Dashboard → Updates and clicking Update Now. Sites that support automatic background updates will begin updating shortly.

For more information, please visit the WordPress 7.0.3 HelpHub site.

Security updates included in this release

The security team would like to thank the following people for responsibly reporting vulnerabilities and allowing them to be fixed in this release:

• Pre-auth reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) on the login screen with potential to lead to PHP code execution reported by the team at pwn.ai.
• Contributor+ stored cross-site scripting (XSS) in posts via the emoji settings element reported by Asaf Mozes (amosec)
• Contributor+ stored cross-site scripting (XSS) in the Post Content block reported by N05ec@LZU
• Contributor+ stored cross-site scripting (XSS) in Quick Edit on sites with a large number of users reported by Naveen S and Ajmal Moochingal
• Contributor+ stored cross-site scripting (XSS) in the Post Date block reported by Alex Concha of the WordPress Security Team
• A privilege escalation issue on multisite networks with user registration enabled, allowing a user to create a new site reported by Aikido Security
• An information disclosure issue in the Latest Comments block exposing comments on password-protected posts reported by Ehtisham Siddiqui of the WordPress Security Team
• Enumeration of post slugs reported by HDWSec
• Disclosure of notes in comment feeds reported by Elio Gubser
• Author+ CSS injection via a bypass of the safe CSS attribute filter reported by Anthropic
• Bypass of the email address confirmation flow reported by Omar Hasan
• A server-side request forgery (SSRF) issue in URL validation allowing requests to link-local ranges reported by Andrew Mohawk and multiple independent reporters

Backports

As a courtesy, these fixes are being backported, where necessary, to all branches eligible to receive security fixes (currently through 4.7). As a reminder, only the most recent version of WordPress is actively supported. The backports are in progress and will ship as they become ready.

WordPress 7.1 RC2 has also been released, containing all applicable fixes.

CVE and GHSA references

Details of the login screen XSS vulnerability can be found in the advisory: CVE-2026-64638 / GHSA-52p2-r8wf-jcrf.

Thank you to these WordPress contributors

This release was led by John Blackbourn. In addition to the security researchers mentioned above, WordPress 7.0.3 and its backports would not have been possible without the significant contributions of the following people:
Aaron D. Campbell, Aaron Jorbin, Adam Silverstein, adrianmoldovanwp, Aki Hamano, Alex Concha, Andrew Duthie, Andrew Serong, annezazu, Barry, Bernie Reiter, Daniel, Daniel Richards, David Biňovec, Dennis Snell, Ehtisham Siddiqui, Erwan Le Rousseau, Fabian Kaegy, fiocavallari, George Mamadashvili, gubser, Isabel Brison, Jarda Snajdr, Jb Audras, Jeremy Felt, Joe Dolson, Joe Hoyle, John Blackbourn, Jon Surrell, Jonathan Desrosiers, Khokan Sardar, Lance Willett, lucasbustamante, lucatume, Marco Ciampini, Marin Atanasov, Mohammad Jangda, Mukesh Panchal, Paul Kevan, Peter Wilson, ramonopoly, SergeyBiryukov, vortfu, Weston Ruter

This version of the WordPress software is still under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended to evaluate RC1 on a test server and site.

WordPress 7.1 RC1 can be tested using any of the following methods:

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.1 is August 19, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who contributes by testing!

Please continue checking the Make WordPress Core blog for 7.1-related posts in the coming weeks for more information.

What’s in WordPress 7.1 RC1?

WordPress 7.1 RC1 contains more than 145 updates and fixes since the Beta 4 release, including 57 in the Editor and 88 in Core.

For an overview of what’s new in WordPress 7.1, read the Beta 1 announcement and the WordPress 7.1 Dev Notes. For a comprehensive summary, see the WordPress 7.1 Field Guide.

You can also explore the technical details of all issues addressed since Beta 4 using the links below:

• GitHub commits for 7.1 since July 29, 2026
• Closed Trac tickets for 7.1 since July 29, 2026

New Features since Beta 1

• Icons API: New APIs for registering icons and icon collections in Core, ready for plugins to extend.
• Speculative loading configuration: Speculative loading defaults can now be configured via environment variables and constants.
• Email notifications for @mentions: Email notifications have been introduced when mentioned in a Note.
• Shareable Revisions: Share links to specific revisions for faster collaboration.

Want to look deeper into the details and technical notes for this release? These tickets and pull requests are just some of the latest updates:

• #GB-79839: Apply globally: choose which modified block styles to apply
• #GB-80814: New responsiveEditingEnabled editor setting to hide responsive styles
• #GB-80107: Tabs: toolbar buttons to reorder tabs
• #GB-80046: DataViews: shift-click range selection
• #65636: Preload REST API requests fetched on editor load
• #65613: Notes are excluded from comment feed queries
• #65491: KSES allows the autofocus attribute on dialog elements
• #65517: Multisite upload limits are enforced when sideloading media from a URL
• #62757: Update the jQuery UI library to version 1.14.2

How you can contribute

WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can help the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.

Get involved in testing

Testing for issues is crucial to the development of any software. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute. 

Your help testing the WordPress 7.1 RC1 version is key to ensuring that the final release is the best it can be. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 7.1.

Update your theme or plugin

For plugin and theme authors, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users.

Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 7.1 beta releases. With RC1, you’ll want to conclude your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 7.1.

If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the support forum.

Test on your hosting platforms

Web hosts provide vital infrastructure for supporting WordPress and its users. Testing on hosting systems helps inform the development process while ensuring that WordPress and hosting platforms are fully compatible, free of errors, optimized for the best possible user experience, and that updates roll out to customer sites without issue.

Want to test WordPress on your hosting system? Get started with configuring distributed hosting tests here. Thank you to all web hosts who help test WordPress!

Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

An RC1 haiku

A candidate stands
the desert sun tests its strength
Arizona waits

Props to @krupajnanda, @annezazu,
@amykamala, @wildworks and @masteradhoc for collaboration and review

This beta release is intended for testing and development only. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, use a test environment or local site to explore the new features.

How to Test WordPress 7.1 Beta 4

You can test WordPress 7.1 Beta 4 in any of the following ways:

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.1 is August 19, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who contributes by testing!

Find out what’s new in WordPress 7.1: Read the Beta 1 announcement for details and highlights.

How important is your testing?

Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it’s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute – whether or not you have experience. Details on what to test in WordPress 7.1 are available here.

If you encounter an issue, please share it in the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums. If you are comfortable submitting a reproducible bug report, you can do so via WordPress Trac. You can also check your issue against this list of known bugs.

Curious about testing releases in general and how to get started? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

What’s in WordPress 7.1 Beta 4?

WordPress 7.1 Beta 4 contains more than 114 updates and fixes since the Beta 3 release, including 51 in the Editor and 63 in Core. 

Each beta cycle focuses on bug fixes, and more are on the way with your help through testing. You can browse the technical details for all issues addressed since Beta 3 using these links:

• GitHub commits for 7.1  since July 22, 2026
• Closed Trac tickets for 7.1 since July 22, 2026

Beta 4 brings a round of fixes that make the editor smoother to work with. Notes now stay reliably tied to the passage they refer to, and tagged people are displayed cleanly and clearly.

A Beta 4 haiku

Testers lend their eyes,
edge cases hide in plain sight—
Patch, rebuild, refine.

Props to @krupajnanda for preparing this post and @annezazu, @wildworks, @amykamala for proofreading and review.

This beta release is intended for testing and development only. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, use a test environment or local site to explore the new features.

How to Test WordPress 7.1 Beta 3

You can test WordPress 7.1 Beta 3 in any of the following ways:

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.1 is August 19, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who contributes by testing!

Find out what’s new in WordPress 7.1: Read the Beta 1 announcement for details and highlights.

How important is your testing?

Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it’s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute – whether or not you have experience. Details on what to test in WordPress 7.1 are available here.

If you encounter an issue, please share it in the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums. If you are comfortable submitting a reproducible bug report, you can do so via WordPress Trac. You can also check your issue against this list of known bugs.

Curious about testing releases in general and how to get started? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

What’s in WordPress 7.1 Beta 3?

For technical details on the more than 71 issues addressed since Beta 1, see the following links:

• Closed 7.1 WordPress Core Trac tickets since July 15, 2026
• 7.1 Gutenberg commits since July 15, 2026

Note: Beta 2 was released on July 17, 2026, as part of the WordPress 7.0.2 release and includes important security fixes.

Beta 3 introduces two improvements to styling.

Applying local style changes globally is no longer an all-or-nothing action. The Apply globally option in the block inspector now opens a quick review step, allowing you to choose which modified styles to apply globally while keeping the rest as local overrides.

Other notable fixes include improvements to media uploads: long animated GIF uploads no longer hang, images rotated using EXIF metadata are processed correctly, and uploading a single HEIC image in Safari no longer creates two entries.

The editor also includes additional fixes for Notes, responsive styling, and custom CSS. For developers, WordPress Coding Standards has been updated to version 3.4.0.

Unicode email address support will not be included in WordPress 7.1. The work will continue in a community plugin, allowing broader testing of compatibility, security, and data-handling considerations.

A Beta 3 haiku

Fresh bugs surface now,
click by click, we chase them down—
codebase grows steady.

Props to @krupajnanda, @annezazu,
@wildworks, @amykamala for proofreading and review.

The 7.0.2 security release addresses one critical and one high severity security issue.

Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately. Due to the severity, the WordPress.org team have enabled forced updates via the auto-update system for sites running affected versions.

To manually update you can visit your WordPress Dashboard, click “Updates”, and then click “Update Now”, or you can download WordPress 7.0.2 from WordPress.org. On sites that support automatic background updates, the update process will begin automatically.

Security updates included in this release

The security team would like to thank the following people for responsibly reporting vulnerabilities and allowing them to be fixed in this release:

• A facilitated SQL injection issue reported as a team by TF1T, dtro, and haongo
• A REST API batch-route confusion and SQL injection issue leading to Remote Code Execution reported by Adam Kues at Assetnote / Searchlight Cyber

For more information on this release, please visit the HelpHub site.

Backports

• WordPress 6.9 is affected by both vulnerabilities. Version 6.9.5 has been released containing fixes for both.
• WordPress 6.8 is only affected by the first vulnerability. Version 6.8.6 has been released containing a fix.
• The beta release of WordPress 7.1 is affected by both vulnerabilities. Version 7.1 beta2 has been released containing fixes for both.
• Versions of WordPress prior to 6.8 are not affected.

CVE and GHSA references

• CVE-2026-60137 / GHSA-fpp7-x2x2-2mjf
• CVE-2026-63030 / GHSA-ff9f-jf42-662q

Thank you to these WordPress contributors

This release was led by John Blackbourn and Barry Abrahamson. In addition to the security researchers mentioned above, WordPress 7.0.2 would not have been possible without the significant contributions of the following people: Aaron Jorbin, Alex Concha, annezazu, Barry, David Baumwald, Dominik Schilling, Ehtisham Siddiqui, Joe Dolson, Joe Hoyle, John Blackbourn, Jonathan Desrosiers, Marius L. J., Matt Mullenweg, Mohammad Jangda, Peter Wilson, Sergey Biryukov, vortfu, Weston Ruter, plus representatives from Altis, Automattic, Bluehost, Cloudflare, GoDaddy, Hostinger, and WP Engine.

This beta release is intended for testing and development only. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, use a test environment or local site to explore the new features.

How to Test WordPress 7.1 Beta 1

You can test WordPress 7.1 Beta 1 in any of the following ways:

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.1 is August 19, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who contributes by testing!

How important is your testing?

Testing for issues is a critical part of developing any software, and it’s a meaningful way for anyone to contribute – whether or not you have experience. Details on what to test in WordPress 7.1 are available here.

If you encounter an issue, please share it in the Alpha/Beta area of the support forums. If you are comfortable submitting a reproducible bug report, you can do so via WordPress Trac. You can also check your issue against this list of known bugs.

Curious about testing releases in general and how to get started? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

WordPress 7.1 will include new features that were previously only available in the Gutenberg plugin. Learn more about Gutenberg updates since WordPress 7.0 in the What’s New in Gutenberg posts for versions 22.7, 22.8, 22.9, 23.0, 23.1, 23.2, 23.3, 23.4, 23.5 and 23.6.

What’s new in WordPress 7.1?

WordPress 7.1 delivers a more complete set of styling controls, a smoother media experience, and a more personalized admin experience. Notes have evolved to add inline notes with @mentions and rich text formatting that make asynchronous feedback feel more powerful. New styling features unlock long requested features to style how blocks look across screen sizes and to style interactive states, all without writing custom CSS. Various client side media improvements means better format support, improved performance, and more resilient uploads when adding media to your site. A new inline cropping tool brings a fresh and more robust experience to editing images. Finally, the admin experience becomes easier to navigate with an ever present admin bar in the editors, improvements to the command palette, and various quality of life improvements. Underneath it all, developers get an expanding set of APIs to build on, and site owners get better support for a truly global audience.

New suite of Notes features

Notes continue to grow into a fuller collaboration experience, making asynchronous feedback between teams faster and more expressive.

Text Formatting: Notes now support inline formatting like bold, italic, code, links and adding emoji; each with a respective keyboard shortcut, so feedback reads clearly without breaking your flow.

@mentions: Type “@” in a Note to pull up a searchable list of collaborators and tag someone directly, so feedback points at the right person without leaving the sidebar.

Leave notes anywhere: Start more than one conversation on the same block instead of folding every comment into a single thread, making it easier to track distinct pieces of feedback.

Inline notes: Leave a note on a text selection instead of on an entire block.

Show more / show less: Long notes now collapse by default with a toggle to expand them, keeping the margin tidy while you write.

Style it your way, on any screen

WordPress 7.1 takes a major step toward built-in responsive design and interactive styling, letting you achieve looks that once required writing custom CSS.

Responsive styling: Define how a block looks at different screen sizes directly in the editor, for both Global Styles and individual blocks without the need of writing custom CSS.

Viewport breakpoint customization: Theme authors can now define their own responsive breakpoints in theme.json, giving more flexibility for how responsive controls behave on a given site.

Interactive state styling: Style how blocks respond to interaction, like a button changing color on hover or focus, using a standardized set of controls for both Global Styles and individual block instances.

A smoother media experience

Uploading, editing, and browsing media keeps getting more capable and more reliable.

• Client-side media processing: Image and media processing moves into the browser, now with broader format support that includes HEIC (the default format for iPhone photos), UltraHDR, AVIF and WebP support built in, plus GIF-to-video conversion for lighter, more efficient files. Uploads are also more resilient, with a progress indicator and automatic retries if your data connectivity drops off.
• New Media Editor Modal: A dedicated modal for editing images replaces the inline cropping tool, bringing cropping, rotation, and metadata editing together in one streamlined workflow.
• Smarter galleries: Gallery blocks can automatically pull in and sort media already attached to the current post, cutting down on manual set-up.
• View attached images: After you upload images to a post, the inserter will automatically surface them in a new Attached images section to make it easier to find relevant images.
• Infinite scrolling by default: The Media Library grid view now loads additional items automatically as you scroll, rather than requiring a click on “Load more” especially handy for sites that handle large media libraries. This can be disabled under your user profile.

A more personal, more navigable admin

These meaningful upgrades make the WordPress admin easier to move around in and more consistent with how you like to work.

• Persistent toolbar (Omnibar): The admin toolbar now travels with you into the Site Editor and Block Editor, with a series of polish improvements throughout.
• Command palette improvements: Moving through the dashboard and editor with the command palette (Ctrl/Cmd+K) is more refined to make finding what you need even faster! Now results are grouped into Recent, matching and Suggestions sections instead of one flat list.
• Admin color scheme in the Site Editor: The Site Editor now reflects your chosen admin color scheme instead of always using a fixed background.
• DataViews and DataForms iterations: Continued refinement of the components behind managing lists of posts, pages, patterns, and templates, alongside the forms used to edit them.
• Excerpts in the Posts list: The Posts list view now shows a short excerpt for each entry, making it easier to identify the post you’re looking for without opening it.
• Visual revisions: This release adds a picker activity layout for browsing history in more detail, clearly labeled autosaves in the timeline, and an autosave notice that opens straight into the visual revisions view. Global Styles revisions get a small polish too, swapping the active style’s text label for a badge.
• A dedicated Identity section: Site identity settings like your title, tagline, and icon are now live in their own clearly labeled section of the Site Editor, making them easier to find and update.
• On This Day Widget: A new widget resurfaces what you published on this date in past years, right on your dashboard. A small nudge to look back on what you’ve written, and a reason to write something new today.
• Allow Changing Comment Parent: Fixing a misthreaded comment used to mean editing the database directly. WordPress 7.1 adds an editable “In reply to” control to the Edit Comment screen, letting you pick a new parent from a dropdown of the post’s other comments. It’s scoped to the same post, so this is about untangling threads, not moving comments across posts.

New blocks and block-level enhancements

WordPress 7.1 release brings a handful of block refinements that give more control with fewer steps.

• Playlist Block: A new block for adding a collection of audio files to a post or page, with an optional waveform visualization that shows the audio’s shape as it plays; a more visual way to present podcasts, music, or audio content without using any third-party plugins.
• Tabs Block: A new block for organizing content into clickable tabbed panels instead of showing everything at once. It’s a cleaner way to present related content without overwhelming the page.
• Background gradients: Background gradients and background images no longer conflict. The gradient used to get silently overridden by the image, but now they combine and display together. This fix extends beyond the Group block to Verse, Accordion, Pullquote, Post Content, and Quote block.
• HTML block editable content: The HTML block now supports editable nested blocks. This is great to use for AI-generated content, which often arrives as raw HTML.
• “Mark as decorative” for images: A new toggle on the Image block lets you hide purely decorative images from screen readers for a better accessibility experience.
• Smarter shortcode handling: Pasting or converting a shortcode into the Embed block now creates a proper Embed block instead of leaving raw shortcode text behind, and the Shortcode block gains block-specific transforms of its own.

Built for a global audience

WordPress 7.1 continues work to make Core reflect the full diversity of its worldwide community, with progress toward supporting Unicode email addresses so usernames, slugs, and email addresses can better represent users everywhere.

Built for developers

WordPress 7.1 continues to expand the foundation developers build on.

• Abilities API expansion: Continued refinement of the Abilities API with improved querying, filtering, and input validation, giving developers and AI tooling a more reliable foundation to build on.
• Block Bindings for list items: Block Bindings now extend to List Item, making it possible to connect more block content to dynamic data sources without custom code.
• Custom icon registration: New functions let plugin and theme authors register their own icons for the Icons block for use throughout the block editor.
• Enforced iframed editor: The post editor now always runs inside an iframe, isolating the editing canvas from admin styles for more predictable rendering. Blocks using Block API v2 or lower should be updated to v3 for compatibility.
• wordpress/theme stabilization: Introduces design tokens and a stable React ThemeProvider to provide a more consistent, customizable foundation for WordPress admin interfaces.
• Connectors authentication improvements: The Connectors screen now also supports username and application-password login – a more familiar way to connect plugins and services. This release also closes a security gap where browsers could auto-suggest saved credentials into the API key field.

With so much in progress for WordPress 7.1 Beta 1, this is still only the beginning; expect continued refinement with each Beta and RC release ahead of the final release on August 19, 2026 at WordCamp US 2026.

Just for you: a Beta 1 haiku:

Seeds of Seven-One,
Notes, styles, media, and tools—
Test, and watch them bloom.

Props to @benjamin_zekavica, @amykamala, @wildworks, @adamsilverstein, @annezazu, @fushar, @jorgefilipecosta, @joedolson for proofreading and review.