WordPress 6.6 Released on July 16, Bringing New Upgrades

In last month’s news roundup (link), I talked about how WordPress 6.6 was working its way through the release process, with multiple beta and release candidate versions.

Now’s the date when I can finally say that we’ve gone through this process successfully…I mean, WordPress has.

WordPress 6.6 “Dorsey” went live a couple of days ago on July 16! 🎉

As with most of the major releases over the past few years, the new features and changes primarily focus on the Site Editor and Block Editor, with not much being done for people using the “classic” approach to WordPress.

Here’s a quick rundown of some new features in WordPress 6.6 (more in the official showcase):

• Synced patterns override – with this feature, you can override specific parts of an otherwise synced pattern, which gives you a little more control over reusable elements on your site. For example, you could use global rules to keep the same structure for all the elements in a pattern, while adjusting the content for each instance.
• Automatic rollbacks for problematic plugin updates – if an automatic plugin update breaks your site, WordPress can automatically roll back your site to get it working again. This should be a huge improvement for people who want to enable automatic updates.
• New grid block – this one is pretty sweet (as long as you have a compatible theme, that is). Basically, it lets you arrange your page stuff in a grid layout. You can easily adjust how much space each item takes up – like stretching it across a few rows or columns.
• Block patterns for classic themes – classic themes will now be able to offer the same pattern interface as block themes, which should be a big improvement for people who are using the Block Editor with a classic theme.
• New publishing workflow – publishing a post/page has been slightly tweaked. It also means that the process is the same for both the Block Editor and the Site Editor.
• Improvements to Data Views – this is the user interface for displaying collections of patterns, templates, posts, media, and so on. There are various tweaks, such as moving template parts management into the patterns area.
• Custom field editing in connected blocks – this feature builds on the custom fields support in WordPress 6.5 to let you edit custom field values directly from a block (as long as that block has been connected to those custom fields).

Honestly, as a casual user, there’s not a ton to be excited about, though I do like the improved pattern interface for classic themes and the automatic rollback feature for plugin updates. Advanced users/developers who are embracing the Site Editor experience should have some fun new stuff to play with, though.

Because WordPress 6.6 is a major release, you do not need to update right away. In fact, I recommend waiting to update just in case any new bugs or issues are discovered.

While the release process catches most issues, it’s always possible for something new to be discovered after the full release. Waiting a bit to apply the update will let the core team patch that issue.

You can read the official WordPress 6.6 release post here, and Kinsta also has a breakdown of everything that’s new. Or, if you’d like to see this in video form, here’s a summary by WP Minute: