# How to Edit the Footer in WordPress A footer still saying © 2023 tells every visitor when the site was last looked after. Fixing it is quick once you know where your theme hides the text, so **find where your theme keeps it first**, and the edit itself is usually a couple of minutes. A WordPress footer lives in one of four places: a Site Editor template part, classic widgets or Customizer fields, the theme's footer.php, or a page builder's Theme Builder. The paths below match WordPress 7.1; the Site Editor's Patterns screen, where template parts live, needs 6.3 or later. 1. [Which footer do you have?](#which-footer-do-you-have) 1. [Block themes: the Site Editor](#block-themes-the-site-editor) 1. [Classic themes: widgets and the Customizer](#classic-themes-widgets-and-the-customizer) 1. [The credit line in footer.php](#the-credit-line-in-footerphp) 1. [Elementor and Divi](#elementor-and-divi) ## Which footer do you have? Open wp-admin and hover over Appearance. If you see Editor, you're on a block theme (Twenty Twenty-Five and most newer themes). If you see Customize and Widgets instead, it's a classic theme. And if the footer was built in Elementor or Divi, skip straight to that section, because the theme's own footer is probably hidden behind it. ## Block themes: the Site Editor On a block theme the footer is a template part, which is a block layout shared by every page that uses it. Change it once and it changes everywhere. 1. Go to Appearance → Editor. 1. Click Patterns, then find Footer under the template parts. 1. Click the footer to open it. 1. Click into the footer text and type over it. Add blocks with the + button, or open List View to find a block that's hard to click. 1. Click Save. WordPress lists everything you changed, so you can tick just the footer. Want the theme's credit line gone? Select that paragraph, open its three-dot menu and choose Delete. Some themes ship two footers (a big one and a minimal one) and use different ones on different templates. If your change shows on the home page but not on blog posts, open Templates, check which footer each template uses, and edit that one too. ## Classic themes: widgets and the Customizer Classic themes usually give the footer one or more widget areas. Since WordPress 5.8 those are edited with blocks. 1. Go to Appearance → Widgets. 1. Click the footer area (names vary: Footer, Footer 1, Footer Widgets). 1. Click + to add a block, or click an existing one to edit it. 1. Save your changes. If you'd rather see the result as you work, go to Appearance → Customize → Widgets instead. You get a live preview, and nothing goes out until you click Publish. Before you go hunting through widgets, check the Customizer's other panels. Some classic themes add their own footer panel with the copyright text as a plain field, and if yours does, that's a 30-second edit. ## The credit line in footer.php If the text you want gone isn't in a widget or a Customizer field, it's hard-coded in the theme's footer.php. This is the one where people get hurt. You can edit it at Appearance → Theme File Editor, pick footer.php from the file list and click Update File. But WordPress's own docs are blunt about it: the editor makes no backup, a PHP mistake can take the site down with no way to fix it from wp-admin, and **the next theme update wipes your change**. So do it in a child theme. Copy footer.php into the child theme's folder, edit the copy, and the parent theme can update all it likes. ## Elementor and Divi ### Elementor A custom footer in Elementor lives in the Theme Builder, which is part of Elementor's paid plans. 1. Open Elementor → Theme Builder from the wp-admin menu. 1. Click the + in the Footer card (or open your existing footer and choose Edit). 1. Edit it like any Elementor page, then click Publish. 1. Pick where it shows. To change that later, open the footer and click Edit Conditions. ### Divi 1. Go to Divi → Theme Builder. 1. In the Default Website Template, click Add Global Footer, then Build Global Footer (or the edit icon on the footer you already have). 1. Design it in the Divi Builder, then click Save in the top toolbar, then Exit. 1. Click Save Changes on the Theme Builder screen so it goes live. ## Or ask your assistant Or hand the whole thing to Claude or ChatGPT, with your site connected through [Kitepod](/wordpress-mcp): ```prompt Change the footer copyright to © 2026 Harbor Street Dental and remove the "Proudly powered by WordPress" line. ``` The assistant does what you'd do by hand: it reads the theme to find where that copyright line actually lives before writing anything. On a block theme it edits the footer template part on a preview link, and your real footer stays as it is until you publish. On a classic theme it changes the widget or Customizer setting. In Elementor it writes through Elementor's own save code and regenerates the CSS, and because the footer is a site-wide Theme Builder template, that write waits for your approval under the default policy. If the line is hard-coded in footer.php, the edit is made in a draft theme (a copy of yours) instead of the theme visitors see, and the PHP is checked for errors before it's saved. Publishing that draft waits for your approval, and when it goes out, Kitepod health-checks the home page and puts the previous theme back if it finds a fatal error. That's exactly the accident the Theme File Editor can't undo. ## What goes wrong ### The change shows on some pages and not others On a block theme, two templates are using two different footer parts. In Elementor or Divi, the footer's display conditions don't cover every page. ### Your footer.php edit vanished The theme updated and replaced the file. Redo it in a child theme this time. ### You saved, but visitors still see the old footer That's almost always a cache. Empty the caching plugin's cache, plus the host-level one if your host runs it, then reload in a private window. ### There's no Appearance → Widgets menu You're on a block theme. Widget areas don't exist there in the classic sense; the footer is a template part in the Site Editor. ### The site went blank after editing footer.php A PHP typo. The Theme File Editor can't fix it once the site is down, so restoring the file means SFTP or the file manager in your hosting panel. Our guide to the [WordPress white screen](/guides/fix-wordpress-white-screen) walks through it. ## Finer points ### How do I remove "Proudly powered by WordPress"? On a block theme, delete the paragraph in the footer template part. On a classic theme, check the Customizer for a footer credit setting first, then the footer widgets, and only then footer.php in a child theme. ### Can I have a different footer on one page? On a block theme, create a custom template for that page and give it a different footer part. In Elementor and Divi, use the footer's display conditions or a separate template assigned to that page. ### Why can't I find the footer in the Site Editor? It's under Patterns, with the other template parts, not under Templates. If your theme doesn't show Appearance → Editor at all, it's a classic theme. ### Do I need a child theme to edit the footer? Only if you're editing footer.php. Site Editor, widget, Customizer and page builder changes are saved in the database, so theme updates leave them alone. Once it's right, the footer is the one part of the site you can forget about until next January.