Depending on who your website host is, you may need to change the file permissions to make the template files writable in the WordPress editor. First off, to get to these template files you need to navigate to Appearance > Editor in your WordPress backend. Once you are there you click on the file you want to edit. If you see a button at the bottom of the code editor that says Update File then the template file is already writable, if not, you’ll have to use a third party tool to change the file permissions.
To change the file permissions on the template files in a WordPress site you can use many different editors out there but I’m on a Mac and there are two that I prefer. The first is called Fetch and the second is Dreamweaver.
- using Dreamweaver, if you have the site files open locally change the view to remote view
- navigate to the file you want to change permissions for, templates are in wp-content > themes
- right click the file you want to set permissions for, ie. index.php then click Set Permissions…
- set the permissions to 666 as follows
- check all three Read boxes for Owner, User/Group and Everyone
- check all three Write boxes for Owner, User/Group and Everyone
- click OK and repeat these steps for any other template files you want to edit in WordPress
- using Fetch, connect to your server and navigate to the template files you want to edit
- WordPress theme files are located in wp-content > themes
- right click the file you want to change permissions for, ie. index.php and select Get Info
- in the Info window popup set the permissions to 666 as follows
- check all three Read boxes for Owner Access, Group Access and Others
- check all three Write boxes for Owner Access, Group Access and Others
- click Apply and repeat these steps for any other template files you want to edit in WordPress
