If you're using the [Ruby Gem]({{ "/docs/quick-start-guide/#ruby-gem-method" | relative_url }}) or [remote theme]({{ "/docs/quick-start-guide/#github-pages-method" | relative_url }}) versions of Minimal Mistakes, upgrading is fairly painless.
When using Bundler you can downgrade or lock the theme to a specific release ([tag](https://github.com/mmistakes/minimal-mistakes/tags)), branch, or commit. Instead of `gem "minimal-mistakes-jekyll"` you'd add the following to your `Gemfile`:
When setting `remote_theme: "mmistakes/minimal-mistakes@4.15.0"` in your `_config.yml` you may also optionally specify a branch, [tag](https://github.com/mmistakes/minimal-mistakes/tags), or commit to use by appending an @ and the Git ref.
For example you can roll back to release 4.8.1 with `mmistakes/minimal-mistakes@4.8.1` or a specific commit with `mmistakes/minimal-mistakes@bbf3cbc5fd64a3e1885f3f99eb90ba92af84063d`). For a complete list of theme versions consult the [releases page](https://github.com/mmistakes/minimal-mistakes/releases).
To update the theme on GitHub Pages you'll need to push up a commit to force a rebuild. An empty commit works well if you don't have anything to push at the moment:
If you want to get the most out of the Jekyll + GitHub Pages workflow, then you'll need to utilize Git. To pull down theme updates you must first ensure there's an upstream remote. If you forked the theme's repo then you're likely good to go.
To double check, run `git remote -v` and verify that you can fetch from `origin https://github.com/{{ site.repository }}.git`.
Depending on the amount of customizations you've made after forking, there's likely to be merge conflicts. Work through any conflicting files Git flags, staging the changes you wish to keep, and then commit them.
Another way of dealing with updates is [downloading the theme](https://github.com/{{ site.repository }}/archive/master.zip) --- replacing your layouts, includes, and assets with the newer ones manually. To be sure that you don't miss any changes it's probably a good idea to review the theme's [commit history](https://github.com/{{ site.repository }}/commits/master) to see what's changed since.
Here's a quick checklist of the important folders/files you'll want to be mindful of:
| Name | |
| ---- | --- |
| `_layouts` | Replace all. Apply edits if you customized any layouts. |
| `_includes` | Replace all. Apply edits if you customized any includes. |
| `assets` | Replace all. Apply edits if you customized stylesheets or scripts. |
| `_sass` | Replace all. Apply edits if you customized Sass partials. |
| `_data/navigation.yml` | Safe to keep. Verify that there were no major structural changes or additions. |
| `_data/ui-text.yml` | Safe to keep. Verify that there were no major structural changes or additions. |
| `_config.yml` | Safe to keep. Verify that there were no major structural changes or additions. |
**Note:** If you're not seeing the latest version, be sure to flush browser and CDN caches. Depending on your hosting environment older versions of `/assets/css/main.css`, `/assets/js/main.min.js`, or `*.html` may be cached.