The release candidate for WordPress 7.1 is now available for testing on VIP from the Software Management page. This is one of the final milestones in the WordPress 7.1 development cycle, with a final release planned for August 19, 2026.
What’s new in WordPress 7.1
WordPress 7.1 brings a refined media experience, adds new options the Abilities API, completes the transition to an iframed editor, and more. Here’s what’s coming:
Media updates
- Client-side media processing: Images are now decoded, resized, and encoded locally in the browser before upload.
- Infinite scroll enabled by default in the Media Library with per-user opt-out.
- Media editor modal: A new modal consolidates cropping, rotation, flip, zoom, and metadata editing for the Image, Site Logo, and Cover blocks.
- Smarter galleries: A new Dynamic Gallery mode automatically displays all media attached to a post, and a new Attachments category in the media inserter makes managing those attachments easier.
Developer updates
- Abilities API updates: New lifecycle filters, a unified public exposure flag, and JSON Schema prep, and more.
- The Post Editor is now always iframed, completing the multi-release move to an iframed editor in all WordPress contexts.
- jQuery UI updated to 1.14.2; Testing plugins that depend on it is recommended.
- SVG Icon API: A public API for registering icons.
- New
wp_get_tooltip()/wp_get_toggletip()functions to improve tooltip accessibility.
Interface updates
- Persistent toolbar: The admin bar now stays visible inside the block editor.
- Admin color scheme in the Site Editor.
- Post list table markup changed, custom CSS/JS in the WordPress admin may break.
- Commands in the Command Palette are now grouped into Suggestions, Recent, and Results sections, with recently used commands remembered across sessions.
- Untitled posts show an excerpt in the Posts list .
Editing & collaboration
- Responsive styling: Blocks can be styled differently per breakpoint directly in the editor.
- Interactive states styling: Button hover, focus, and active states can now be styled without custom CSS, globally or per block instance.
- Block Notes can now be attached to specific words or span multiple blocks, and support rich text, images, emoji reactions,
@mentionswith notifications, and multiple threads on the same block. - New blocks: Playlist Block, Tabs Block,
- Block updates: “Mark as decorative” toggle in Image Blocks, background gradient and image support for text blocks, editable blocks inside Custom HTML, registered shortcodes now transform cleanly into their matching blocks.
- Visual Revisions improvements: autosave notices now open the visual revisions view directly, and autosave rows are clearly badged in the timeline.
Keep in mind that features might get dropped until the final release on August 19.
Testing & support
How to test the upgrade on a local environment
The quickest way to test locally is to use the VIP Local Development Environment.
To update an existing environment:
vip dev-env update -w=7.1 --slug=mytestsite
To create a new one:
vip dev-env create -w=7.1 --slug=mytestsite
How to test the upgrade on a VIP Platform environment
You can update your non-production environments by running the 7.0 version of WordPress from within the Software Management section of the VIP Dashboard or by running the vip config software update command with VIP-CLI.
For example:
vip @mytestsite.develop config software update wordpress trunk
Not for production environments
WordPress VIP does not recommend using pre-release versions in production environments. Any sites that have managed updates will automatically be updated to WordPress 7.1 when it is released on August 19, 2026.
Questions?
If you have testing feedback or questions related to this release, please open a support ticket, and we will be happy to assist.