Use a child theme

A child theme keeps your code changes safe when the theme updates. WordPress loads the child theme first and falls back to the theme for everything it doesn’t override, so you only change what you need.

1. Install the the theme child theme zip from the download package the same way as the theme.
2. Activate the child theme. the theme itself must stay installed.
3. Add your CSS to the child theme’s style.css and your PHP to its functions.php.

Use a child theme if you plan to change even a single line of the theme’s code.

Customizer settings are stored per theme: after switching to the child theme, export them from the theme and import them in the child. Learn more in the WordPress child themes guide.