WordPress 7.1, code-named “Mary Lou” after jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams, is out. It’s the second major WordPress release of 2026, and it focuses on giving you more control over how your site looks and how you manage images and feedback, without needing custom code.
Style your site for every screen size
The Site Editor now lets you set different styles for a block depending on screen size, directly from Global Styles or individual block settings. Previously, getting a layout to look right on both desktop and mobile usually meant writing custom CSS. Now you can adjust and preview those changes for different screen widths as you build, so a header or image gallery that looks right on desktop won’t break on a phone.
The admin bar now follows you everywhere
The black admin bar at the top of your screen used to disappear in some editing screens. In 7.1, it stays visible across every editor, so you always have quick access to your site’s tools whether you’re writing a post or working in the Site Editor. It also got a small visual refresh.
One dedicated place to edit images
WordPress replaced its old inline cropping tool with a new media editor modal. Click the same familiar Crop button and you now get freeform and fixed aspect-ratio cropping, horizontal and vertical flipping, precise rotation, and metadata editing, all in one workflow instead of scattered across different screens.
Notes get rich text, mentions, and more flexibility
The Notes feature, which lets you and collaborators leave feedback inside content, now supports bold, italic, code formatting, and links. Type @ to mention a teammate and notify them directly. Notes are no longer limited to whole blocks either, you can now attach a note to a specific piece of text.
New blocks and icon options
Two new blocks arrive in this release: Playlist and Tabs. WordPress also added an API that lets developers register their own icon sets for the Icon block, giving site builders more options without needing a separate plugin.
Should you update?
WordPress 7.1 rolls out through the usual auto-update process, so most sites will get it automatically. If your site depends on a specific PHP version, WordPress’s Hosting Team has published updated server compatibility recommendations for this release, worth a quick check if you manage your own hosting environment.
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