Select Page

WordPress 6.1 Beta 2 is now available for download and testing.

This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended that you test Beta 2 on a test server and site. 

You can test WordPress 6.1 Beta 2 in three ways:

Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).

Option 2: Direct download the Beta 2 version (zip).

Option 3: Use the following WP-CLI command:

wp core update –version=6.1-beta2

The current target for the final release is November 1, 2022, which is about five weeks away. 

Additional information on the 6.1 release cycle is available.

Check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.1-related developer notes in the coming weeks detailing all upcoming changes.

Keep WordPress bug-free – help with testing

Testing for issues is critical for stabilizing a release throughout its development. Testing is also a great way to contribute. This detailed guide is an excellent start if you have never tested a beta release before.

Testing helps ensure that this and future releases of WordPress are as stable and issue-free as possible. Anyone can take part in testing – especially great WordPress community members like you.

Want to know more about testing releases like this one? Read about the testing initiatives that happen in Make Core. You can also join a core-test channel on the Making WordPress Slack workspace.

If you have run into an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac. This is also where you can find a list of known bugs.

To review features in the Gutenberg releases since WordPress 6.0 (the most recent major release of WordPress), access the What’s New In Gutenberg posts for 14.1, 14.0, 13.9, 13.8, 13.7, 13.6, 13.5, 13.4, 13.3, 13.2, and 13.1.

This release contains more than 350 enhancements and 350 bug fixes for the editor, including more than 250 tickets for the WordPress 6.1 core. More fixes are on the way.

Some highlights

Want to know what’s new in version 6.1? Read the initial Beta 1 announcement for some details, or check out the product walk-through recording.

What’s new in Beta 2

Here are some updates since last week’s Beta 1 release:

24 issues addressed in Github

A haiku for beta 2

WordPress six-point-one
Global collaboration
Gutenberg phase two

Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: @dansoschin, @robinwpdeveloper, and @webcommsat