The second release candidate (RC2) for WordPress 6.1 is now available!
“Release Candidate” means that this version of WordPress is ready for release and it is a key milestone in the 6.1 release cycle! Before the official release date, the community sets aside time to perform final reviews and help test. Since the WordPress ecosystem includes thousands of plugins and themes, it is important that everyone checks to see if anything has been missed along the way. That means the project would greatly benefit from your assistance.
WordPress 6.1 is planned for official release on November 1st, 2022, two weeks from today.
This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended that you test RC2 on a test server and site.
You can test WordPress 6.1 RC2 in three ways:
Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).
Option 2: Direct download the RC2 version (zip).
Option 3: Use the WP-CLI command:
wp core update --version=6.1-RC2
Additional information on the 6.1 release cycle is available here.
Check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.1-related developer notes in the coming weeks detailing all upcoming changes.
What’s in WordPress 6.1 RC2?
Since Release Candidate 1, approximately 65 items have been addressed, bringing the total count to more than 2,000 updates since WordPress 6.0 in May of 2022.
WordPress 6.1 is the third major release for 2022, following 5.9 and 6.0, released in January and May of this year, respectively.
To learn more about the highlights for both end-users and developers, you’re invited to read more about them in the RC1 announcement post and review the WordPress 6.1 Field Guide.
Plugin and theme developers
All plugin and theme developers should test their respective extensions against WordPress 6.1 RC2 and update the “Tested up to” version in their readme file to 6.1. If you find compatibility problems, please post detailed information to the support forums, so these items can be investigated further prior to the final release date of November 1st.
Translate WordPress
Do you speak a language other than English? Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages.
Keep WordPress bug-free – help with testing
Testing for issues is critical for stabilizing a release throughout its development. Testing is also a great way to contribute. This detailed guide is an excellent start if you have never tested a beta release.
Testing helps ensure that this and future releases of WordPress are as stable and issue-free as possible. Anyone can take part in testing – regardless of prior experience.
Want to know more about testing releases like this one? Read about the testing initiatives that happen in Make Core. You can also join a core-test channel on the Making WordPress Slack workspace.
If you have run into an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac. This is also where you can find a list of known bugs.
To review features in the Gutenberg releases since WordPress 6.0 (the most recent major release of WordPress), access the What’s New In Gutenberg posts for 14.1, 14.0, 13.9, 13.8, 13.7, 13.6, 13.5, 13.4, 13.3, 13.2, and 13.1.
Haiku Fun for RC2
Two weeks from the launch Constant improvements we make Great outcomes await
Update Oct 25 12:45 UTC: This post has been updated to remove the reference to Gutenberg versions 14.3 and 14.2 being included in the 6.1 release. They will be included in a future release.