Automattic Release Notes

New Features

• Browse podcast networks from Discover, search and the podcast page (#5865)

Bug Fixes

• Fix video freezing when rotating into landscape fullscreen and stuttering when resuming from the background (#5844)
• Keep the multi-select episode selection when rotating the device on the podcast screen (#5836)
• Prevent the app from being killed in the background on low-memory devices by pausing player UI updates while playing (#5843)
• Closing the transcript search bar now keeps the transcript open at the same scroll position instead of exiting the transcript (#5835)
• Stop "Cache entire playing episode" from silently downloading oversized or video enclosures in the background (#5868)
• Keep the Playback Effects icon visible on the Now Playing screen when a podcast's colours haven't loaded yet (#5877)

Original source

Fix Listening History search showing "No episodes found" before the search had finished, and results not turning up until the query was retyped when history synced late #4984

Fix the app freezing and closing itself when creating a Smart Playlist #4993

Add a Bluesky link to the About screen alongside Website, Instagram and X #4998

Fix setting the sleep timer through Siri or Shortcuts while the device is locked #4812

Fix a rare crash when starting episode downloads #5001

Tapping a Discover collection's poster now opens the expanded collection, the same as tapping "Show All" #5028

Add support for "Networks" row in "Discover" #5026

Add networks to search, including "Combined Results" and a new dedicated tab/filter #5037

Fix the Download button doing nothing in Search and Discover episode results #4702

Fix a rare crash when the What's New screen was shown while another screen was still being dismissed #5003

Original source

Fix the Bookmarks multi-select layout: rows keep their text width instead of shrinking, the selection bar sits just above the mini player instead of floating too high, and on iOS 26 it hides the tab bar and mini player correctly #4819
Fix the day label in episode cells growing out of proportion at large text sizes #4818
[tvOS] Add audio-reactive waveform to TV now playing screen. #4853
Make the Up Next navigation bar consistent between the tab and player presentations: Select and a new "…" menu with Clear Up Next on the trailing edge, and a standard close button when opened from the player #4875
[tvOS] Add audio-reactive waveform to TV now playing screen. #4853
[tvOS] Fix VoiceOver accessibility issues across the app: unlabeled tiles, fragmented row/text reads, and missing announcements for toasts, sign-in, and pairing #4888
[tvOS] Add support for regular episode lists. #4852
[tvOS] Fix episode count on smart playlists #4905
Fix a crash when the sign in prompt was shown while another screen was still being dismissed #4903
[tvOS] Add support server driven home page layout #4854
[tvOS] Add support for HLS episodes previews in episodes video list #4921
Recognise more HLS content types in alternate enclosures #4935
Disable "Tab Bar Minimizing" by default – there is an option to opt-in in Appearance Settings #4950

Original source

Each WordPress release celebrates an artist who has made an indelible mark on the world of music.

WordPress 7.1, code-named “Mary Lou,” honors pioneering jazz pianist, arranger, and composer Mary Lou Williams.

A child prodigy who began playing publicly at six, her influence and work cut across nearly every major era of jazz, moving through swing, bebop, and sacred jazz. Through all of it, she kept reinventing her own sound. In the 1940s, she turned her Harlem apartment into a nightly workshop where Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell came to trade ideas and shape bebop itself. That combination of reinvention and collaboration inspired WordPress 7.1.

Let the range of Mary Lou’s music carry you through everything 7.1 offers.

Welcome to WordPress 7.1!

WordPress 7.1 is built around how you work: navigating the admin, controlling your designs, collaborating with others, and building what you want. The admin bar now follows you across the entire admin experience, putting the tools you need within reach, whether you’re writing a post or editing your site’s design. Built-in responsive styling, added to the current show/hide options for blocks, means you can ensure your site looks exactly how you want across screen sizes, without custom CSS. A new media editor keeps the familiar Crop button entry point, and brings freeform and aspect-ratio cropping, horizontal and vertical flipping, fine-grained and snap rotation, and metadata editing into one dedicated workflow. Leave Notes anywhere in your content—no longer limited to the block level. Rich text support and @mentions make it easier to collaborate with others as you write. Two new blocks, Playlist and Tabs, as well as a new API to register your own set of icons for the Icon block, give you even more flexibility to build what you want without additional plugins. These are just the highlights! Read on to see everything WordPress 7.1 has to offer.

What’s inside

There’s a lot packed into WordPress 7.1 across new styling tools, updated media flows, added Notes functionality, and more. Some changes add new capabilities, while others refine existing tools and workflows.

Here’s a closer look at what’s new in this release, starting with the release video:

Apply responsive styles

Style your content your way, on every screen.

WordPress 7.1 brings more responsive controls directly into the Site Editor. Style how a block looks at different screen sizes from Global Styles or in individual block settings, without custom CSS. You can also preview your changes at different viewport sizes as you work, making it straightforward to build layouts that adapt to the way people browse the web.

Admin bar, now in every editor

Consistent navigation, from dashboard to editor.

The WordPress admin bar now stays with you as you move across all editors, so you always know where you are and have easy access to familiar tools. The admin bar also features some small visual updates to more fully polish the experience.

A new way to crop

One dedicated workflow for editing your images.

A new media editor modal replaces the previous inline cropping tool, bringing together freeform and aspect-ratio cropping, horizontal and vertical flipping, precise rotation control, and metadata editing together in one place. The familiar Crop button still gets you there.

Inline notes with mentions and rich text

More ways to leave feedback.

Notes now support rich text and mentions, making it easier to leave clear feedback and loop in the right people. Format your Notes with bold, italic, and code, add links, or type @ to mention a collaborator and notify them.

You can also leave a note on a specific piece of text instead of just an entire block, keep multiple conversations going on the same block, and collapse longer notes to keep the margin tidy. It’s built for the back-and-forth that happens when people review content together.

Improved media handling

Faster, more flexible image processing.

Image compression, resizing, and thumbnail generation now happen in the browser, reducing server load and producing smaller files — without hitting PHP memory limits or upload timeouts.

Media handling in 7.1 also includes native support for AVIF, HEIC, and HDR gain maps, adding native support for the image formats modern cameras and phones already produce.

Enhanced details and new blocks

WordPress 7.1 also adds two new blocks, along with more ways to customize how content looks and behaves.

Create playlists

Bring multiple audio tracks together in one playlist, with an optional waveform that gives listeners a visual sense of each track as it plays.

Customize responsive breakpoints

Block themes can now define their own mobile and tablet breakpoints in theme.json, overriding the defaults for responsive styles and block visibility.

Organize with tabs

Organize content into tabbed panels instead of showing everything at once—a cleaner way to present related information without crowding your content.

Add custom icons

Developers can extend WordPress’s icon library with their own collections, making custom icons available throughout the editor alongside the built-in library.

Set interactive styles

Give Button blocks distinct styles for hover, focus, and active states directly in the editor’s style controls. Set the styles for just one button or all buttons.

A more consistent editing experience

The post editor is now fully iframed for all themes, matching the Site Editor.

The editing canvas runs separately from the WordPress admin interface, so admin styles don’t interfere with your content. Viewport-relative units and media queries now target the editing canvas directly, so responsive layouts behave more predictably as you build. The change is mostly invisible, but the result is a more reliable and consistent editor.

Developer’s toolbox

Advanced tools for building your way.

WordPress 7.1 expands several of the APIs and tools developers use to build on WordPress, with new options for icons, automation, admin interfaces, and responsive styling.

The SVG Icon API is now a public API, allowing developers to register their own icon collections and icons and use them throughout the editor with functions such as wp_register_icon_collection(), wp_register_icon(), and wp_get_icon().

The Abilities API builds on the infrastructure introduced in WordPress 6.9 with a filterable execution lifecycle, custom validation, and shared discovery. These additions make it easier to build integrations and automation on top of WordPress, including AI-powered tooling.

A new Design System provides foundational support for theming WordPress admin interfaces, including color, roundness, and cursor styles. Developers can use semantic design tokens and the ThemeProvider React component to bring more consistency to custom admin interfaces while still feeling at home in WordPress.

Theme authors also get responsive styling and pseudo-state styling for hover, focus, focus-visible, and active states through theme.json, along with new filters for configuring the DataViews and DataForm screens that power Pages, Templates, Parts, and Patterns in the Site Editor.

Accessibility

WordPress 7.1 continues to improve accessibility across WordPress Core and the editor. New wp_get_tooltip() and wp_get_toggletip() functions bring accessible tooltips to more areas of the WordPress admin, including post meta boxes and the login screen.

Screen reader support also improves across admin interfaces, with clearer labeling and more predictable navigation in post list tables. The new Tab and Playlist blocks, along with improvements to editor navigation and interaction, add to the broader accessibility work included in this release.

Together, these changes continue to make WordPress easier to navigate and use for more people.

Performance improvements

Image compression, resizing, and thumbnail generation now run in the browser (via a WebAssembly build of libvips), reducing the processing load on your server and helping avoid memory limits and timeouts with larger uploads.

Opt-in GIF-to-video conversion produces typically smaller files, while upload progress indicators and automatic retries make uploads more resilient when connections drop.

The Media Library now uses infinite scrolling by default, with a per-user option to return to pagination. Speculative loading defaults can now be set through environment variables or constants, so hosts and site owners can configure how WordPress prefetches pages without writing a plugin.

And much more!

For a comprehensive overview of everything new and improved in WordPress 7.1, visit the feature showcase website.

Learn more about WordPress 7.1

Learn WordPress is a free resource for new and experienced WordPress users. Learn is stocked with how-to videos on using various features in WordPress, interactive workshops for exploring topics in-depth, and lesson plans for diving deep into specific areas of WordPress.

Read the WordPress 7.1 Release Notes for information on installation, enhancements, fixed issues, release contributors, learning resources, and the list of file changes.

Explore the WordPress 7.1 Field Guide. Learn about the changes in this release with detailed developer notes to help you build with WordPress.

The 7.1 release squad

Every release comes to you from a dedicated team of enthusiastic contributors who help keep things on track and moving smoothly. The team that has led 7.1 is a cross-functional group of contributors who are always ready to champion ideas, remove blockers, and resolve issues.

Thank you, contributors

The mission of WordPress is to democratize publishing and embody the freedoms that come with open source. A global and diverse community of people collaborating to strengthen the software supports this effort.

WordPress 7.1 reflects the tireless efforts and passion of more than 800 contributors from all over the world. This release also welcomed over 170 first-time contributors!

Together, their work delivered more than 1500 enhancements and fixes, helping make WordPress 7.1 a stable and polished release for everyone. It’s another great example of what the WordPress open source community can accomplish when people come together to build, test, and improve the software.

More than 20 locales have fully translated WordPress 7.1 into their language making this one of the most translated releases ever on day one. Community translators are working hard to ensure more translations are on their way. Thank you to everyone who helps make WordPress available in 200+ languages.

Last but not least, thanks to the volunteers who contribute to the support forums by answering questions from WordPress users worldwide.

Get involved

Participation in WordPress goes far beyond coding. And learning more and getting involved is easy. Discover the teams that come together to Make WordPress and use this interactive tool to help you decide which is right for you.

Original source

• Add Smart Bookmarks: bookmarks now suggest a title and capture the surrounding passage from the episode transcript, mark their spot in the transcript, and anchor their timestamp to the transcript's reference timeline so it stays accurate even when dynamic ads shift the audio #4761
• Add swipe actions to bookmark rows (Share and Delete) in the Player, the podcast screen's Bookmarks tab, standalone Podcast bookmarks, Episode, and Profile bookmark lists #4900 #4912
• Add a Sleep Timer Live Activity so users can see the remaining sleep timer countdown from the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. #4949
• Fix animations on the podcast screen's Bookmarks tab: rows now animate as they are added, removed and filtered, and highlight when tapped #4904
• Fix bookmark multi-select losing track of a selected bookmark when it was edited or updated by a sync, leaving a wrong selection count and a row that could not be deselected #4913
• Fix the bookmark multi-select long press options: Select all above/below now flip to Deselect all above/below once that range is selected, and are left out for the first and last bookmark #4915
• Fix the podcast screen tabs being clipped when scrolled #4918
• Fix the About and Legal & More screens not following the app's theme, the Automattic family logos being misaligned, and legal pages (Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Acknowledgements) not expanding beyond the safe area #4887
• Improve playback reliability when starting audio #4938
• Optimize fingerprinting and features that depend on it, including synced transcripts and more #4846, #4847
• [tvOS] Show Episode artworks on player, episode show notes and podcast episode list #4893
• [tvOS] Add a Top Results tab to Search, now the default, showing a Featured row of matching video episodes followed by Episodes and Podcasts rows. The Episodes tab leads with the same Featured row whenever a search turns up video episodes #4926

Original source

WordPress 7.0.4 is now available

WordPress 7.0.4 is now available which features a security fix. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately.

You can update to WordPress 7.0.4 by downloading it from WordPress.org, or visiting your site’s Dashboard Updates and clicking Update Now. Sites that support automatic background updates will begin updating shortly.

For more information, please visit the WordPress 7.0.4 HelpHub site.

Security update included in this release

The security team would like to thank the team at pwn.ai for responsibly reporting the following vulnerability and allowing it to be fixed in this release:

• Authenticated Author+ remote code execution via malicious file upload on sites that use Imagick and Ghostscript.

Backports

As a courtesy, these fixes are being backported through to the 4.7 branch and the 7.1 RC3 release that’s due later today. As a reminder, only the most recent version of WordPress is actively supported. The backports are in progress and will ship as they become ready.

CVE and GHSA references

Further details can be found in the advisory: CVE-2026-65640 / GHSA-8vr3-7mxf-gx8w.

Thank you to these WordPress contributors

This release was led by John Blackbourn, with significant input from Dennis Snell and Jeremy Felt. In addition, WordPress 7.0.4 and its backports would not have been possible without the valuable contributions of the following people:

Aaron D. Campbell, Aaron Jorbin, Adam Silverstein, Aki Hamano, Alex Concha, Barry, Dennis Snell, Ehtisham Siddiqui, Jeremy Felt, John Blackbourn, Jon Surrell, Jonathan Desrosiers, Lance Willett, Marin Atanasov, Mohammad Jangda, Sergey Biryukov, vortfu, Weston Ruter, and representatives from WP Engine.

Original source

Security updates included in this release

WordPress 7.0.3 is now available which features several security fixes. Because this is a security release, it is recommended that you update your sites immediately.

You can update to WordPress 7.0.3 by downloading it from WordPress.org, or visiting your site’s Dashboard Updates and clicking Update Now. Sites that support automatic background updates will begin updating shortly.

For more information, please visit the WordPress 7.0.3 HelpHub site.

The security team would like to thank the following people for responsibly reporting vulnerabilities and allowing them to be fixed in this release:

Backports

As a courtesy, these fixes are being backported, where necessary, to all branches eligible to receive security fixes (currently through 4.7). As a reminder, only the most recent version of WordPress is actively supported. The backports are in progress and will ship as they become ready.

WordPress 7.1 RC2 has also been released, containing all applicable fixes.

CVE and GHSA references

Details of the login screen XSS vulnerability can be found in the advisory: CVE-2026-64638 / GHSA-52p2-r8wf-jcrf.

Thank you to these WordPress contributors

This release was led by John Blackbourn. In addition to the security researchers mentioned above, WordPress 7.0.3 and its backports would not have been possible without the significant contributions of the following people:

Aaron D. Campbell, Aaron Jorbin, Adam Silverstein, adrianmoldovanwp, Aki Hamano, Alex Concha, Andrew Duthie, Andrew Serong, annezazu, Barry, Bernie Reiter, Daniel, Daniel Richards, David Biňovec, Dennis Snell, Ehtisham Siddiqui, Erwan Le Rousseau, Fabian Kaegy, fiocavallari, George Mamadashvili, gubser, Isabel Brison, Jarda Snajdr, Jb Audras, Jeremy Felt, Joe Dolson, Joe Hoyle, John Blackbourn, Jon Surrell, Jonathan Desrosiers, Khokan Sardar, Lance Willett, lucasbustamante, lucatume, Marco Ciampini, Marin Atanasov, Mohammad Jangda, Mukesh Panchal, Paul Kevan, Peter Wilson, ramonopoly, SergeyBiryukov, vortfu, Weston Ruter.

Join us for the launch of WordPress 7.1 at WordCamp US 2026, August 16.

Original source

Fix the Bookmarks multi-select layout: rows keep their text width instead of shrinking, the selection bar sits just above the mini player instead of floating too high, and on iOS 26 it hides the tab bar and mini player correctly #4819

Fix the day label in episode cells growing out of proportion at large text sizes #4818

[tvOS] Add audio-reactive waveform to TV now playing screen. #4853

Make the Up Next navigation bar consistent between the tab and player presentations: Select and a new "…" menu with Clear Up Next on the trailing edge, and a standard close button when opened from the player #4875

[tvOS] Add support for regular episode lists. #4852

[tvOS] Fix episode count on smart playlists #4905

Fix a crash when the sign in prompt was shown while another screen was still being dismissed #4903

Original source

The first Release Candidate (“RC1”) for WordPress 7.1 is ready for download and testing!

This version of the WordPress software is still under development. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it’s recommended to evaluate RC1 on a test server and site.

WordPress 7.1 RC1 can be tested using any of the following methods:

Plugin

Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on a WordPress install. (Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.)

Direct Download

Download the RC1 version (zip) and install it on a WordPress website.

Command Line

Use this WP-CLI command:

wp core update --version=7.1-RC1

WordPress Playground

Use the WordPress Playground instance to test the software directly in your browser. No setup required – just click and go!

The scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.1 is August 19, 2026. The full release schedule can be found here. Your help testing Beta and RC versions is vital to making this release as stable and powerful as possible. Thank you to everyone who contributes by testing!

Please continue checking the Make WordPress Core blog for 7.1-related posts in the coming weeks for more information.

What’s in WordPress 7.1 RC1?

WordPress 7.1 RC1 contains more than 145 updates and fixes since the Beta 4 release, including 57 in the Editor and 88 in Core.

For an overview of what’s new in WordPress 7.1, read the Beta 1 announcement and the WordPress 7.1 Dev Notes. For a comprehensive summary, see the WordPress 7.1 Field Guide.

You can also explore the technical details of all issues addressed since Beta 4 using the links below:

• GitHub commits for 7.1 since July 29, 2026
• Closed Trac tickets for 7.1 since July 29, 2026

New Features since Beta 1

• Icons API: New APIs for registering icons and icon collections in Core, ready for plugins to extend.
• Speculative loading configuration: Speculative loading defaults can now be configured via environment variables and constants.
• Email notifications for @mentions: Email notifications have been introduced when mentioned in a Note.
• Shareable Revisions: Share links to specific revisions for faster collaboration.

Want to look deeper into the details and technical notes for this release? These tickets and pull requests are just some of the latest updates:

• #GB-79839: Apply globally: choose which modified block styles to apply
• #GB-80814: New responsiveEditingEnabled editor setting to hide responsive styles
• #GB-80107: Tabs: toolbar buttons to reorder tabs
• #GB-80046: DataViews: shift-click range selection
• #65636: Preload REST API requests fetched on editor load
• #65613: Notes are excluded from comment feed queries
• #65491: KSES allows the autofocus attribute on dialog elements
• #65517: Multisite upload limits are enforced when sideloading media from a URL
• #62757: Update the jQuery UI library to version 1.14.2

How you can contribute

WordPress is open source software made possible by a passionate community of people collaborating on and contributing to its development. The resources below outline various ways you can help the world’s most popular open source web platform, regardless of your technical expertise.

Get involved in testing

Testing for issues is crucial to the development of any software. It’s also a meaningful way for anyone to contribute.

Your help testing the WordPress 7.1 RC1 version is key to ensuring that the final release is the best it can be. While testing the upgrade process is essential, trying out new features is equally important. This detailed guide will walk you through testing features in WordPress 7.1.

Update your theme or plugin

For plugin and theme authors, your products play an integral role in extending the functionality and value of WordPress for all users.

Thanks for continuing to test your themes and plugins with the WordPress 7.1 beta releases. With RC1, you’ll want to conclude your testing and update the “Tested up to” version in your plugin’s readme file to 7.1.

If you find compatibility issues, please post detailed information to the support forum.

Test on your hosting platforms

Web hosts provide vital infrastructure for supporting WordPress and its users. Testing on hosting systems helps inform the development process while ensuring that WordPress and hosting platforms are fully compatible, free of errors, optimized for the best possible user experience, and that updates roll out to customer sites without issue.

Want to test WordPress on your hosting system? Get started with configuring distributed hosting tests here. Thank you to all web hosts who help test WordPress!

Curious about testing releases in general? Follow along with the testing initiatives in Make Core and join the #core-test channel on Making WordPress Slack.

An RC1 haiku

A candidate stands
the desert sun tests its strength
Arizona waits

Props to @krupajnanda, @annezazu, @amykamala, @wildworks and @masteradhoc for collaboration and review

Join us for the launch of WordPress 7.1 at WordCamp US 2026, August 16–19.

Original source