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WordPress 7.1 was released on 19 August 2026 under the codename ‘Mary Lou’, in honour of jazz pianist, arranger and composer Mary Lou Williams. The release was led by Anne McCarthy; more than 800 contributors worked on it, over 170 of whom were first-time contributors, and it includes more than 1,500 improvements and fixes.
Responsive styles without custom CSS
You can now customise the appearance of blocks for different screen sizes, either in the global styles or within the settings of individual blocks, without the need for custom CSS. Whilst editing, you can also preview the result in different view sizes. This complements the per-device hiding feature introduced in version 7.0, whilst block templates can now specify their own mobile and tablet breakpoints in the theme.json file.
New image editor and in-browser image processing
- New media editor: the familiar ‘Crop’ button opens a separate window where you can crop freely or to a specific aspect ratio, flip horizontally or vertically, rotate precisely and edit metadata.
- Image processing in the browser: compression, resizing and thumbnail generation are carried out in the browser using the WebAssembly version of libvips. This reduces the load on the server, results in smaller files, and means that even with large images, you won’t hit PHP’s memory limit or upload time limit.
- New formats: native AVIF, HEIC and HDR gain map support, meaning images from today’s phones and cameras can be uploaded directly.
- Optional GIF-to-video conversion, upload progress indicator and automatic retry in the event of a lost connection.
- The media library operates with infinite scrolling by default; pagination can be re-enabled on a per-user basis.
We’ve written about reducing image sizes in our WordPress image optimisation guide.
Notes, admin bar and new blocks
- The ‘Notes’ feature introduced in version 6.9 supports formatted text, links and @mentions, and can now be attached to a single section of text, not just an entire block.
- The admin bar remains visible in every editor, so you always know where you are and have your usual tools to hand.
- Playlist block: multiple audio files in a playlist, with optional waveform display.
- Tabs block: content organised into tabs, which displays related information without looking cluttered.
- The Button block can be given a different style for mouse-over, focus and click.
- The post editor runs in an iframe with every template, just like the website editor, so the admin styles do not interfere with the content.
For developers
The SVG Icon API has been made public, allowing users to register their own icon collections for the Icon block. The Abilities API has been expanded to include custom validation and a filterable execution process, which also facilitates AI-based automation. A new Design System helps with building consistent admin interfaces, whilst template creators can specify responsive and state-dependent (hover, focus, active) styles in theme.json. jQuery UI has been updated to version 1.14.2; it is worth testing this with any plugins built on top of it.
The default settings for speculative loading can be specified using an environment variable or a constant, allowing web hosting providers and system administrators to control preloading without the need for a plugin.
What didn’t make the cut
Real-time collaborative editing has not been enabled in version 7.1 either: it was extensively tested during the development cycle, and work is continuing on conflict resolution and compatibility. Hiding the Classic block from the inserter has been reverted, so it remains available, whilst the switch to React 19 has been postponed.
Update
Make a backup before updating, and as the image processing and editor have changed significantly, it’s worth trying it out in a test environment first. Version 7.1 is compatible with PHP versions 7.4 to 8.5. On our WordPress hosting, you can initiate the update for all your sites at once via the WP Toolkit.
As of October 2026, the 7.1 branch was at version 7.1.3. Full details can be found in the 7.1 release notes and the developer’s guide.
The previous major release was WordPress 7.0 ‘Armstrong’.