Importing and exporting a theme

A downloaded archive is your fallback, but it is not a byte-for-byte mirror, and the file you import back must be named in 30 characters or fewer.

Downloading a theme gives you the fallback the editor does not otherwise provide. Two things to know before you rely on it: the archive is not a byte-for-byte mirror of your theme, and the file you import back must be named in 30 characters or fewer. You need to be a Knowledge admin for both directions.

Download

1. In Knowledge admin, click Customize design.
2. Open the theme's options menu and select Download.
3. Store the zip somewhere your team can find it, named with the date and what changed.

The archive contains templates, JavaScript, CSS and assets.

Import

1. In Knowledge admin, click Customize design, then Add theme.
2. Select Import theme and choose the zip. It is imported and appears on your Themes page.
3. Make it the live theme when you are ready. That is a separate, deliberate step.

You can hold a maximum of 10 themes per instance, so a habit of importing every backup fills the list in a few months.

The 30-character rule contradicts good naming

Store your archives with descriptive names, because three files called theme.zip are worth roughly one file. But the compressed file you import must have a name of 30 characters or fewer, so rename the copy you are importing rather than the one you are keeping.

Check this before an emergency restore, which is exactly when a rejected import is least welcome.

What the download does not include

Files that do not match a recognised type, or that do not sit in a supported folder, are stripped from the theme before download. Optional templates have to live in templates/article_pages, templates/category_pages, templates/section_pages or templates/custom_pages to survive.

So an archive is a reliable fallback for a theme built inside the supported structure and an incomplete one for a theme with files parked elsewhere. If you have ever added something in an unusual place, check the archive rather than assuming.

Help centre themes also do not support template partials, which is the other thing that surprises people arriving from another platform.

Copy is the faster rollback

The theme's options menu offers Copy, Rename and Delete alongside Download. There is no restore-to-an-earlier-version, so before editing a theme that is live, copy it. The copy sits in the list, costs one of your ten slots, and turns a bad Friday into two clicks.

You cannot delete the live theme, which is a useful guard: to remove it you must first make another theme live.

Moving a theme between accounts

Download from one, import into the other. Settings come along; content does not, and neither do images you uploaded through the article editor rather than into the theme's own assets. Check images first after an import, because that is where the gaps show up.

Keep one known-good copy

Separate from the working archives: the last version everybody agreed looked right. That is what you restore to when a change goes wrong.

See also

• Editing a theme's code
• How themes work
• My theme change is not showing