WordPress 7.1 gets an official release: August 19, 2026, coinciding with the final day of WordCamp US in Phoenix. It is primarily a “finish what we started” release that follows WordPress 7.0’s AI and collaboration principles.
WordPress 7.1 is the second substantial release in 2026, offering new media features, styling controls, an enhanced admin experience, and more.
This blog post explains the new features and improvements that WordPress 7.1 brings for users, developers, and website managers.
What’s New in WordPress 7.1?
WordPress 7.1 brings exciting features, including styling controls, an improved media experience, and an engaging admin experience. Additionally, users can benefit from improved note features, including inline notes, @mentions, and rich-text formatting.
Likewise, users can experience new styling features that help them style how blocks across screen sizes without editing custom CSS. They can also take advantage of various client-side media improvements, including better format support, improved performance, and more.
A new inline cropping tool is crucial for easy image editing. Furthermore, the admin experience is more user-friendly, as you can easily use admin bars in the editors, the command palette, and other options.
New Suite of Notes features
As discussed, users can use improved notes to deliver expressive, asynchronous feedback across teams.
Text Formatting
Notes have inline formatting such as italics, bold, code, links, and emoji, each with its own keyboard shortcut. This lets users read feedback without hampering their flow.
@mentions
Luckily, users can type “@” in a note to get a searchable list of collaborators. Similarly, they can tag collaborators directly, so feedback reaches the right person without leaving the sidebar.
Leave Notes Anywhere
Users can begin various conversations on the same block, as they don’t need to fold every comment into a single thread. As a result, they can easily monitor different pieces of feedback.
Inline Notes
You can smartly leave a note on a text selection instead of choosing a whole block.
Show More / Show Less
Users can display long notes using a toggle. As you know, long notes now collapse by default.
Style It Your Way on Any Screen
WordPress 7.1 now provides users with useful options, such as interactive styling and built-in responsive design, that empower them to achieve looks that once required custom CSS.
Responsive Styling
Now users can describe how a block should appear across multiple screen sizes in the editor, for individual blocks as well as Global Styles, without using custom CSS.
Viewport Breakpoint Customization
Theme authors can highlight and represent their own responsive breakpoints in theme.json. It empowers them to be more flexible in demonstrating how responsive controls influence any website.
Interactive State Styling
Users can style how blocks respond to interactions, such as a button changing color on hover or focus. They can make full use of a standardized set of controls for individual block and Global Styles instances.
A Smoother Media Experience
When we talk about a smoother media experience, it is about editing, browsing, and uploading media without fuss, making it reliable and more intuitive.
Client-Side Media Processing
Fortunately, WordPress 7.1 lets media and image processing run in the browser. It also includes built-in support for various formats, including HEIC (the default format for iPhone photos), UltraHDR, AVIF, and WebP, alongside GIF-to-video conversion for efficient file management.
New Media Editor Modal
WordPress 7.1 offers a dedicated image-editing modal that helps rotate, crop, and edit metadata all in one place.
Smarter Galleries
Smarter galleries are another crucial option, as gallery blocks can automatically pull in and sort media attached to the post appropriately.
View Attached Images
After uploading images to the post, an inserter will surface them automatically in a new Attached Images section.
Infinite Scrolling by Default
You can use the Media Library grid view that assists you in loading additional items automatically as you scroll. This means that you don’t have to click “Load more. This feature comes in handy if you manage sites with large media libraries.
A More Personal, More Navigable Admin
WordPress 7.1 offers users a range of impressive options that make the admin experience more enjoyable and impactful.
Persistent Toolbar (Omnibar)
In this latest release, the admin toolbar moves with you in the Block Editor and the Site Editor. The toolbar has several useful improvements.
Command Palette Improvements
The command palette is now more refined and helps users navigate the dashboard and editor more easily. Furthermore, the results have been grouped into Matching, Suggestions, and Recent sections.
Admin Color Scheme in the Site Editor
In WordPress 7.1, the Site Editor displays your chosen admin color scheme instead of using a fixed background.
DataViews and DataForms Iterations
WordPress 7.1 continues to improve the components and the handling of lists of pages, patterns, templates, posts, and forms used to edit them.
Excerpts in the Posts List
The Posts list view now displays a short excerpt for each entry, enabling users to identify the post they search for without opening it.
Visual Revisions
WordPress 7.1 includes a picker activity layout that helps users browse history in detail, with autosaves labeled in the timeline. Moreover, users can open an autosave notice that leads to the visual revisions view. Likewise, Global Styles revisions have been improved, and the active style’s text label has been replaced with a badge.
A Dedicated Identity Section
You can benefit from site identity settings such as title, icon, and tagline, which are live in the labeled section of the Site Editor.
On This Day Widget
WordPress 7.1 brings a new widget: what you published on this date in past years, which users can access using their dashboard. This feature lets you see what you have written and what new content you can publish today.
Allow Changing Comment Parent
Users can experience an editable “In reply to” control on the Edit Comment screen. It helps them choose a new parent from a dropdown of the post’s other comments. Furthermore, the editable “In reply to” control has been scoped to the same post.
New Blocks and Block-Level Enhancements
WordPress 7.1 offers several block refinements that are described below:
- Playlist Block: This block provides many audio files on a page or post. It also includes an optional waveform visualization that reveals the audio’s shape. Playlist block helps present podcasts, audio, or music content without deploying any third-party plugins.
- Tabs Block: The tabs block transforms content into clickable tabbed panels instead of displaying everything simultaneously.
- Background Gradients: In WordPress 7.1, the background images and background gradients don’t conflict with each other. That said, they are combined and shown together.
- HTML Block Editable Content: The HTML block supports editable nested blocks. It is suitable for AI-generated content that comes as raw HTML.
- “Mark as Decorative” for Images: In WordPress 7.1, users can use a new toggle in the Image block to hide purely decorative images from screen readers.
- Smarter Shortcode Handling: This helps create a proper Embed block by converting or pasting a shortcode into the Embed block.
WordPress 7.1 – What’s New for Developers
WordPress 7.1 equally supports developers in various areas, including:
- Abilities API Expansion: WordPress 7.1 has focused on refining the Abilities API with enhanced querying, filtering, and validation. It provides a reliable foundation for developers.
- Block Bindings for List Items: Block bindings have been extended to List Items, allowing users to connect more block content to dynamic data sources without custom code.
- Custom Icon Registration: Plugin and theme authors can now register their icons for the Icons block with new functions, accessible across the block editor.
- Enforced iframed Editor: As you know, the post editor is embedded in an iframe and separates the editing canvas from admin styles. Blocks using Block API v2 or earlier should be updated to v3 for compatibility.
- Wordpress/Theme Stabilization: The package theme used by theme authors to develop block themes comprises an architecture and API review. It provides a stable, documented theming foundation for the future.
- Connectors Authentication Improvements: The Connectors screen supports username-and-application-password login to bypass a security issue that enabled browsers to auto-suggest saved credentials into the API key field.
WordPress 7.1 Release Schedule
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- Beta 1: July 15, 2026
- Beta 2: July 22, 2026
- Beta 3: July 29, 2026
- Release Candidate 1 (RC 1): August 5, 2026
- Release Candidate 2 (RC 2): August 12, 2026
- Dry Run: August 18, 2026
- Final Release: August 19, 2026
WordPress 7.1 Beta 1
WordPress 7.1 Beta 1 is available for download and testing. The planned or scheduled final release date for WordPress 7.1 is August 19, 2026.
How to Test WordPress 7.1 Beta 1?
If you are willing to test WordPress 7.1 Beta 1, follow different ways, including:
WordPress Beta Tester Plugin
Install and activate the WordPress Beta Tester plugin on your WordPress website. Select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream.
Direct Download
Download the Beta 1 version (zip) and install it on your WordPress website.
Wrapping Up
WordPress 7.1 is a timely, crucial release that highlights the importance of one of the leading content management systems and smartly follows AI and collaboration foundations. You can also experience standout features, including Notes, an improved admin experience, enhanced media experience, and styling controls.
Remember, WordPress 7.1 is scheduled for release on August 19, 2026, alongside WordCamp US.
