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How to Install and Change Your Joomla Template

Getting Started · Joomla 4, 5, 6 · Updated June 1, 2026

✅ Verified on Joomla 5.4.6: the Templates screens below match the live admin.

A template controls how your Joomla site looks. Joomla 5 ships with the Cassiopeia front-end template; you can install others or build a child template.

Step 1 — Install the template

A template is just an extension. Go to System → Install → Extensions, then on Upload Package File upload the template’s .zip. See the full install an extension guide if you get stuck.

Step 2 — Set it as the default

  1. Go to System → Templates → Site Templates (the “Templates” submenu).
  2. You’ll see the installed template styles.
  3. Click the star next to the style you want, or open it and set it as Default.

The star marks the default applied to the whole site.

Step 3 — (Optional) Assign a template to specific pages

You don’t have to use one template everywhere:

  1. Open a template style.
  2. On the Menu Assignment tab, choose the menu items that should use this style.

This lets you, for example, use a different look on a landing page.

Tip: don’t edit the template directly

If you want to customise a template’s CSS/layout, create a child template (System → Templates → Site Templates → New) instead of editing the original. That way your changes survive template updates.