Preserving theme settings in child theme

Question

My client uses Karma theme with many settings in theme options. I need to keep my CSS and PHP additions in a child theme so that theme updates don't wipe it out. However when I select my child theme in Appearance > Themes, the main theme settings are all gone.

Is there any way to preserve the main theme settings?

Answer 1

Because of the way these theme settings are stored as an array in the database, it can be difficult to copy them over with just copy and paste in phpmyadmin or some similar tactic.

The WP CLI option command is your friend here. If you don't use WP CLI already, check it out! Here's how I copied the settings from the storefront theme to a theme called storefront-sqcdy-child:

# save the existing theme settings in json format in a temporary text file
wp option get theme_mods_storefront --format=json > theme_mods_storefront.txt

# load the saved settings into the child theme option record in the database
wp option update theme_mods_storefront-sqcdy-child --format=json < theme_mods_storefront.txt

# cleanup the temp file
rm -f theme_mods_storefront.txt

Answer 2

Wordpress theme modifications are saved in wp_options database table in theme_mods_{themename} field. You can copy it and rename using your child theme name.

Answer 3

I know this is an old question, but I needed to do this and it was quite simple:

NOTE: This is mostly useful for themes that use the WordPress Customizer to configure their settings

• Take a backup of your website (files and database) using a plugin such as Updraftplus
• Get access to your database whether via Cpanel's phpAdmin or alike
• Go to your {prefix}_options (wp_options) table and run the query:

SELECT * FROM {prefix}_options where option_name like 'theme_mods_%'

This will pull up the theme mods saved for all themes.

• Look for the option with the name of your current active theme example: theme_mods_mytheme

• Copy it's option_value and save to a text file or something.

• Go back to WordPress and activate your new child theme

• Then go back to the database and refresh the options/run query again and you should see a new option now called theme_mods_mytheme-child (assuming your child theme is called 'mytheme-child')

• Edit it's option_value, delete what's there and paste the previously copied data that you saved to the text file and save the changes.

• Go back to the site and refresh the page, you'll see that things now are the same as it was with the parent theme.

---

This method also works if you have a child theme folder named something like 'mytheme-child' and you maybe want to rename the folder name to 'newtheme' after you've already done Customizer changes to the site while 'mytheme-child' was active.

Answer 4

This plugin worked very well for me

Child Theme Copy Settings

Answer 5

I solved by simply copying the options in the database.

Here are the step-by-step procedure:

1. Log into your phpMyAdmin and select the database of the webiste
2. Backup the database
3. Execute this query in order to have a clear view of the situation: SELECT * FROM wp_options WHERE option_name LIKE "theme_mods_%"; this instruction will return a row for every theme you have activated on your website so far
4. Modify the row of the parent theme settings, identified by option_name = theme_mods_parent-theme-name
5. Here, in the option_value field, you have all the parent theme settings in a serialized form; copy them; you can use an unserialize tool in order to see the content in a human-friendly form
6. Come back to the point 3, but now modify the row of the child theme settings
7. Paste the settings you have copied before in the option_value field; save

Answer 6

You could do something like what Genesis child themes include to save default theme settings when activating and switching themes:

//* Theme Setting Defaults
add_filter( 'genesis_theme_settings_defaults', 'child_theme_defaults' );
function child_theme_defaults( $defaults ) {

    $defaults['blog_cat_num']              = 6;
    $defaults['content_archive']           = 'full';
    $defaults['content_archive_limit']     = 150;
    $defaults['content_archive_thumbnail'] = 0;
    $defaults['image_alignment']           = '';
    $defaults['image_size']                = 'entry-image';
    $defaults['posts_nav']                 = 'prev-next';
    $defaults['site_layout']               = 'full-width-content';

    return $defaults;

}

//* Theme Setup
add_action( 'after_switch_theme', 'child_theme_setting_defaults' );
function child_theme_setting_defaults() {

    if( function_exists( 'genesis_update_settings' ) ) {

        genesis_update_settings( array(
            'blog_cat_num'              => 6,
            'content_archive'           => 'full',
            'content_archive_limit'     => 150,
            'content_archive_thumbnail' => 0,
            'image_alignment'           => '',
            'image_size'                => 'entry-image',
            'posts_nav'                 => 'prev-next',
            'site_layout'               => 'full-width-content',
        ) );

    } else {

        _genesis_update_settings( array(
            'blog_cat_num'              => 6,
            'content_archive'           => 'full',
            'content_archive_limit'     => 150,
            'content_archive_thumbnail' => 0,
            'image_alignment'           => '',
            'image_size'                => 'entry-image',
            'posts_nav'                 => 'prev-next',
            'site_layout'               => 'full-width-content',
        ) );

Clearly you would need to modify this code to work with your themes functionality.