WordPress 6.0 is scheduled for release next week on May 24, 2022! This RC3 release is the final opportunity for you to test and help contribute to making the 6.0 release great.

You can view changes since the RC2 release via Gutenberg and Trac.

Installing RC3

This version of the WordPress software is under development. Please do not install, run, and test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended that you install RC3 on a test server and site. 

You can test WordPress 6.0 RC3 in three ways:

Option 1: Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).

Option 2: Direct download the release candidate (zip).

Option 3: When using WP-CLI to upgrade from Beta 1, 2, 3, 4, RC1, or RC2 on a case-insensitive filesystem, please use the following command:

wp core update --version=6.0-RC3

Plugin and Theme Developers

All plugin and theme developers are encouraged to complete testing of their respective extensions against WordPress 6.0 RC3 and update the “Tested up to” version in their readme file to 6.0 this week. If you find compatibility problems, please be sure to post detailed information to the support forums, so these items can be investigated further prior to the final release date of May 24.

Review the WordPress 6.0 Field Guide, for more details on this release.

Review additional information on the full 6.0 release cycle.

Check the Make WordPress Core blog for 6.0-related developer notes in the coming weeks which will detail upcoming changes.

Translate WordPress

Do you speak a language other than English? Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages.

How to Help Test WordPress

Testing for issues is critical for stabilizing a release throughout its development. Testing is also a great way to contribute to WordPress. If you are new to testing, check out this detailed guide that will walk you through how to get started.

If you think you have run into an issue, please report it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can file one on WordPress Trac. This is also where you can find a list of known bugs.

RC3, An (Almost) Final Haiku

It’s near time for six
The reward is the journey
Just one week to go

Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: @dansoschin, @webcommsat.