WordPress 7.1 comes out on August 19, 2026. It's the second major WordPress release this year. Instead of one headline feature, this release focuses on improving the entire editing experience: responsive design controls, interactive state styling, better media handling, new blocks, editor usability improvements, and a few developer-focused APIs.
Whether you're a site owner, content creator, theme developer, or plugin developer, WordPress 7.1 has something that makes building and managing your site faster and more flexible.
This guide walks through every major feature coming in WordPress 7.1, what it does, and why it matters.
How Does WordPress 7.1 Change the Way You Design Pages?
WordPress 7.1 lets you style how a block looks on different screen sizes and how it reacts to a mouse or keyboard, directly in the editor, without writing a line of CSS. This is the headline feature of the release.
Responsive Styling Comes to the Block Editor
WordPress 7.1 introduces responsive styling directly inside the editor, allowing you to customize how blocks look across different screen sizes without writing CSS.
Depending on the block, you'll be able to configure different values for typography, spacing, layout, dimensions, and other design settings across various screen sizes. This gives much greater control over how your content appears on different devices while keeping the editing experience visual and intuitive.
To use it, select a block, then click the view icon. Choose responsive styling, then pick the device you want to design for: desktop, tablet, or phone. You can make a heading larger on desktop and smaller on mobile, all from the same panel.
π‘
Tips: If you're exploring modern WordPress editing capabilities, check out our guide onΒ PHP-only blocks in WordPress 7.0Β to see how block development is becoming simpler for developers.
Style Every State Without CSS
Until now, changing how a button or link looks on hover meant writing custom CSS. WordPress 7.1 adds visual controls for theseΒ interactive pseudo states, so you can style them directly in the editor.
You can switch between states(Hover, Focus, Focus-Visible, and Active) and set a different color, border, background, shadow, or typography for each one. This makes it easier to build engaging interfaces while also improving accessibility.
A new "State" option lets you set a different style for when someone hovers over a button, tabs into it with a keyboard, or clicks it. The preview updates live as you work.
π‘
Notes: Hover and focus control is only available on the Button block and the Navigation Link block.
What's New With the Notes Feature in WordPress 7.1?
Notes in WordPress 7.1 lets you leave feedback on a specific piece of text instead of an entire block, so a comment no longer needs a Slack message to explain which sentence it's about. The feature first appeared in WordPress 6.9, and this release makes it genuinely usable for day-to-day editorial work.
You can now attach a note to a specific selection of text instead of an entire block, so feedback points at exactly the phrase you mean. Notes support rich formatting: bold (Ctrl/β + B), italics (Ctrl/β + I), links (Ctrl/β + K), and emojis, so a note can actually explain itself instead of reading like a plain-text scrap.
Type "@" inside a note and a list of your site's users pops up, letting you tag a specific collaborator, who then gets an email notification linking straight back to the post.
You can also leave more than one note on the same block, which matters if two different people are commenting on two different things in the same paragraph. Long notes collapse by default with a "Show more" toggle, so a detailed note doesn't take over the sidebar.
How Does Client-Side Media Processing Speed Up Your Uploads?
WithΒ client-side media processing, WordPress 7.1 moves image processing out of your server and into the browser. Previously, when you uploaded an image, your server had to generate every thumbnail size, handle format conversion, and fix rotation using PHP. Now the browser does that work instead, using a fast, established image library called libvips running right inside your browser, and sends the finished files to WordPress.
The practical upshot: fewer failed uploads on large image files, since you won't hit your host's PHP memory limit mid-upload. Your server also does less work overall, since it's no longer generating every thumbnail size itself. And because the browser's processing produces better-compresse
Two upload types get a real, visible improvement:
Animated GIFs you upload are automatically converted into lightweight video files (using the same kind of technology your browser already uses to play video), so a GIF that used to weigh down your page loads much lighter without you doing anything differently.
HEIC photos, the default format iPhones use, are automatically converted to JPG before upload. You no longer need a plugin just to make iPhone photos work on your site.
Alongside this, the Media Library grid now scrolls infinitely by default instead of paginating, so you can keep scrolling through your library instead of clicking "next page" repeatedly. If you'd rather have the old paginated view back, there's a toggle for it in your user profile settings.
What New Blocks Does WordPress 7.1 Add?
WordPress 7.1 adds two brand new blocks.
Tabs Block
The Tabs block organizes content into clickable panels, letting a visitor click between sections instead of scrolling through a long page. It's a natural fit for FAQs, product comparisons, or any content with a handful of parallel options.
Each tab panel can hold any other block inside it, not just text. You can drop in images, buttons, columns, galleries, or even another Tabs block, so a tab isn't limited to a paragraph.
The tabs themselves are fully styleable. You can set the color, typography, and spacing for the tab buttons, and control the overall look of the tab panel separately, so the whole block can match your site's design.
Playlist Block
The Playlist block lets you embed a simple audio playlist, complete with a waveform visualization that shows the shape of each track. It supports whatever audio file types WordPress already accepts.
The playlist itself has several toggles you can turn on or off: showing the tracklist, artist names, track numbers, track duration, tracklist images, and whether the track image appears on the play button. You can also set the track order to ascending or descending.
Each track has its own settings: artist, album, title, and a track image, so every song in the playlist can show proper metadata and cover art instead of a generic placeholder.
On the styling side, the block has its own controls for the block and the waveform background, and their shape, so the playlist can match your site's design rather than looking like a generic embed.
What's New for the Icon Block in WordPress 7.1?
WordPress 7.1 opens up the Icon block to icon sets beyond WordPress's own defaults, and gives the Icon block itself a few small but useful upgrades.
Custom SVG Icons API
One of the biggest developer-focused additions in WordPress 7.1 is the newΒ Custom SVG Icons API.
Previously, developers who wanted custom icons often had to register them using JavaScript, build custom icon libraries, or depend on third-party solutions. WordPress now provides an official API for registering and managing SVG icon collections.
Developers can register icons individually or as complete collections and make them available throughout the Block Editor. Once registered, these icons can be used in custom blocks, plugins, themes, and the Icon Block itself.
If you build WordPress plugins and want the full technical walkthrough, including a working example plugin,Β see our complete guide on registering custom SVG icons in WordPress 7.1.
Icon Block Toolbar Improvements
The Icon block itself picked up a few smaller improvements too: newly inserted Icon blocks now start with a default icon instead of an empty placeholder, and the toolbar has new controls to flip an icon horizontally or vertically, or rotate it 90 degrees at a time.
What Else Changed in the WordPress Admin?
A handful of smaller changes add up to a more consistent day-to-day experience.
The admin toolbar now appears inside the post editor and the Site Editor for the first time. Previously, opening either editor made the toolbar disappear entirely, and the only way back to the dashboard was clicking the "W" logo in the editor's own toolbar, which didn't read as a back button to most people.
WordPress 7.1 fixes both problems: the editor toolbar now has a proper back button (a left-pointing chevron), and the admin toolbar itself shows your site's icon.
TheΒ Site Editor sidebarΒ finally matches whatever admin color scheme you've chosen in your profile, instead of always defaulting to black regardless of your preference.
There's also a new Identity section under Design in the Site Editor, grouping your site title, tagline, logo, and icon in one place instead of scattering them across Settings and templates.
What Other Small Improvements Should You Know About?
A few smaller design tools rounded out this release. None of these are big enough for their own section, but they're worth knowing about.
Text-shadow support: You can now add a text shadow through Global Styles. It's an early implementation, currently only configurable through theme.json rather than a visual control, so it's more useful to theme developers than to someone editing a single post today.
Background gradients: Several blocks (Group, Accordion, Pullquote, Post Content, and Quote) now support background gradients by default, controllable right in the block settings.
Minimum width: Blocks can now have a minimum width set, alongside the existing height and width controls.
What Developer Experience Improvements Does WordPress 7.1 Bring?
Beyond visual improvements, WordPress 7.1 introduces several enhancements aimed at developers.
Better Block Bindings
Block Bindings already let you connect a block's content, like a Heading, Paragraph, or Button, to a dynamic data source such as a custom field, without writing rendering code. WordPress 7.1 extends that same capability to list items, so a bullet or numbered list can pull from a data source too.
Expanded Abilities API
The Abilities API, which lets WordPress expose specific actions to AI tools and other integrations, picks up better filtering, validation, and a clearer way to mark an ability as publicly available.
If you're building AI-connected features or automations on top of WordPress, this makes those integrations more reliable and easier to control.Β See our Abilities API + MCP guide for the full guide.
Final Thoughts
WordPress 7.1 is a design and collaboration release: responsive styling and hover states without touching CSS, Notes that finally feel built for teams, faster image handling for supported browsers, and two genuinely useful new blocks. None of it demands a relearning curve, but the responsive and interactive styling controls alone are worth exploring the moment you update.
Keep an eye on your usual update workflow: back up first, test on staging if you run custom blocks or older plugins, then roll it out.
Frequently Asked Questions
When will WordPress 7.1 be released?
WordPress 7.1 is scheduled for release onΒ August 19, 2026. If you're running a production website, it's a good idea to test the update on a staging site first, especially if you use custom themes or plugins.
Does WordPress 7.1 support real-time, multi-person editing?Β
No. WordPress 7.1 focuses on asynchronous collaboration through the upgraded Notes feature. Two people editing the same post at the same time, Google Docs style, is not part of this release.
What is the Custom SVG Icons API in WordPress 7.1?
The Custom SVG Icons API is a new developer feature that provides a standardized way to register and manage custom SVG icon collections. Developers can register individual icons or entire icon libraries and use them throughout the Block Editor.
Does WordPress 7.1 require a new minimum PHP version?Β
WordPress 7.1 doesn't introduce a new PHP requirement beyond what WordPress 7.0 already set. If your site runs comfortably on 7.0, it will run on 7.1.
Top comments (0)