Title: CSS backup vs Child Theme
Last modified: August 22, 2016

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# CSS backup vs Child Theme

 *  [torzmanian dev](https://wordpress.org/support/users/torzmanian-dev/)
 * (@torzmanian-dev)
 * [11 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/css-backup-vs-child-theme/)
 * Hi all,
 * I am trying some edits to my CSS – I understand I need to backup my original 
   CSS before doing so.. I see a lot of people saying that it is highly recommended
   to create a child theme in advance of this.
 * My question is could I not just create a .txt back up of the style.css (in /../
   wp-admin/theme-editor.php)? If I did this periodically throughout the changes
   I am making, wouldn’t I have a series of CSS versions I could revert back to 
   by just pasting back the into that “Edit themes” box, in case anything goes wrong?
 * If anyone has any idea, would greatly appreciated..
 * Thanks!
    Torz

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  [stephencottontail](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stephencottontail/)
 * (@stephencottontail)
 * [11 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/css-backup-vs-child-theme/#post-5672584)
 * On a technical level, I don’t see anything wrong with this plan. But consider
   that depending on the theme, you may not want to completely overwrite all of 
   the CSS on each update. For example, a theme update may add some new features
   and some corresponding CSS, and overwriting the entire stylesheet means you would
   lose the styling for the new features.
 *  Thread Starter [torzmanian dev](https://wordpress.org/support/users/torzmanian-dev/)
 * (@torzmanian-dev)
 * [11 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/css-backup-vs-child-theme/#post-5672603)
 * Thanks for the speedy reply! I think that makes sense – I am not super concerned
   about the theme feature updates so at this point I don’t think should be a factor..
   Just so I understand the Child theme – are updates by the theme author basically
   the only reason that one would use the Child theme backup method? I’m obviously
   new to this, but is there anything else that would get backed up with the Child
   theme method that wouldn’t via my .txt method… do edits to the CSS affect any
   other files – e.g. php, html etc (I mean in a way that could cause a WordPress
   issue — obviously the CSS affects the HTML upon browser rendering).
 * Thanks again, and also sorry for the typos — have had my eyes on the screen for
   a bit too long now;)
 * -Torz
 *  [stephencottontail](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stephencottontail/)
 * (@stephencottontail)
 * [11 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/css-backup-vs-child-theme/#post-5672628)
 * A child theme isn’t really intended to be used as a backup method, per se. The
   reason people recommend making a child theme before making edits to your CSS 
   is so you won’t lose your changes when/if the theme is later updated. You can
   also use a child theme to override PHP files from the parent theme: WordPress
   will use any PHP files from your child theme first and use the parent theme’s
   files as a last resort.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘CSS backup vs Child Theme’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [child theme](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/child-theme/)
 * [edit css](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/edit-css/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 3 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [stephencottontail](https://wordpress.org/support/users/stephencottontail/)
 * Last activity: [11 years, 4 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/css-backup-vs-child-theme/#post-5672628)
 * Status: not resolved

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