How to check wordpress version

What will you need for check wordpress version?

Before beginning this guide, check the following:

• Access to the administration area of ​​WordPress or access to the hosting control panel

Option 1 – Read the version of WordPress in the admin console

The first and most convenient way to verify the version of WordPress is through the administration area of ​​the site. Just log into your WordPress console and go to the Updates section located in the left menu bar.

 Here you will see exactly what version of WordPress your site has, and also the latest available version of WordPress.

 If you find that you do not have the latest available version, be sure to backup your site before proceeding with its update.

Along with the Update page  , you can also find your version of WordPress scrolling any page of the admin area to the footer section. 

There you can see the text Thank you for your work with WordPress and next to it the current version of WordPress. Please note that this option is available starting with WordPress version 4.1.5 and higher.

Option 2 – Learn the version of WordPress in the source code of the page

It happens that you either can not enter the administrative area of ​​WordPress, or you do not have login account information. 

This means that Option 1  is not suitable for you to learn the version of WordPress. But do not worry – there is another method, although less reliable.

Usually, sites created on the basis of WordPress, contain information about the version in the meta-tag HTML. This tag is added by default to the site by the WordPress theme.

But can be disabled by the site administrator, for security reasons. However, it’s worth trying if you do not have access to the administration area.

To check the version of WordPress via the meta tag, simply open the site in your browser. Now right-click anywhere on the site and select View page source. A new page in the browser will open the page with the HTML source code.

Now just press  CTRL + F or COMMAND + F if you are using a Mac. In the field open for search, type generator  and see what appears. If the site administrator has not disabled the meta-tag generator, you will see this:

As we already mentioned, displaying a version of WordPress for everyone can cause serious security problems. If this is your own site, you should immediately disable this tag. 

If you do not see this tag, it means that the topic you are using already hides it, which is a good trend in terms of securing your site.

You can perform the following actions to disable the generator meta-tag in the source code of your pages:

1. Go to the admin console of your site on WordPress.
2. Go to the Appearance  ->  Editor section  .
3. Select your current theme and select the functions.php file   for editing.
4. Paste this code at the very end of the file:

   remove_action('wp_head', 'wp_generator');

5. Save the changes by clicking the Update file button  .

Option 3 – Read the version of WordPress from version.php

An alternative to the two methods discussed above is to dive into the source files of your site on WordPress. This is the most reliable method, but also requires the most amount of time. 

First of all you need to connect to your account on the hosting, using the file manager of your hosting provider or using an FTP client .

Next, once connected, go to the WordPress installation directory (usually  public_html ) and open the wp-includes directory  . 

Here, find the version.php file   and open it. In this file in line 7 is the version of your WordPress installation, it will look like this:

$wp_version = ‘4.4.2’;