How to Update Blender (2026)
Blender has no in-app updater. Which version you should actually be on, how to upgrade on Windows, macOS, Linux and Steam, and how to do it without breaking a project or losing your add-ons.
Blender is one of the few applications this size that never nags you. There is no updater, no background service, no toast telling you 5.2.1 is out. That is a deliberate design choice, and it means "how do I update Blender" has a different answer depending on how you installed it in the first place.
This guide covers every route, which version is worth being on right now, and the two things that actually break when people upgrade: files and add-ons.
Quick answer
| How you installed Blender | How to update it |
|---|---|
| Installer from blender.org (Windows) | Download the new installer, run it |
| Zip from blender.org (Windows, Linux) | Extract the new build to its own folder |
| DMG from blender.org (macOS) | Drag the new Blender.app into Applications |
| Microsoft Store | Updates install themselves |
| Steam | Updates install themselves |
| Snap (Linux) | snap refresh blender, or wait — snap updates on its own |
| Distribution package (apt, dnf, pacman) | Update with everything else on the system |
Which version should you be on?
Blender ships three major releases a year, one of which is an LTS. An LTS gets bug-fix updates for two years and never gains new features or API changes; a regular release is supported until the next one lands (Blender Releases, retrieved 28 August 2026).
Right now that produces three sensible choices:
Blender 5.2 LTS — the default answer Released 14 July 2026, fixes until July 2028. Newest features and the long support window, which does not happen often. Last patch was 5.2.1 on 25 August 2026.
Blender 4.5 LTS — the safe holdout Still maintained, last updated to 4.5.13 on 25 August 2026. The right pick if a paid add-on or a studio pipeline has not been rebuilt for 5.x yet.
A non-LTS release Fine to use, but it stops getting fixes the moment the next release ships. Choose it for a specific feature, not out of habit.
Blender 4.2 LTS is finished. It received its last update, 4.2.23, in July 2026, and now sits under Previous LTS Releases (Blender LTS, retrieved 28 August 2026). It still runs, and it will keep running — Blender releases stay downloadable forever — but no more fixes are coming.
On an Intel Mac, the decision is made for you. Blender 5.0 and later only support Apple silicon; Intel builds were removed. 4.5 LTS is the last version you can run, and it is supported into 2027. Apple silicon users need macOS 13 Ventura or newer for the current build.
Before you update: two things that actually break
Updating Blender is nearly always uneventful. The two failure modes worth ten seconds of thought:
1. Files do not travel backwards cleanly. Blender opens older files well. Going the other way, the manual is blunt: loss of features "should always be expected" when a newer file is opened in an older Blender, and saving over it can make that loss permanent — you get a warning in the UI and a confirmation popup (Blender Manual: Compatibility). Across a major version bump the file may not open at all. In that case the last LTS of the previous cycle acts as a converter, which is one more reason to keep an LTS installed.
2. Add-ons declare a version range, and they mean it. An extension's manifest states which Blender versions it supports. Upgrade past the top of that range and the add-on either refuses to enable or throws on registration. Check the product pages of the two or three add-ons you cannot work without before you upgrade, not after.
Neither is a reason to stay on an old release. Both are reasons to install the new version alongside the old one rather than on top of it.
Updating on Windows
Three install methods, three answers.
From the installer. Download the new .msi from blender.org/download and run it. It needs administrator rights, creates the Start menu entry, and takes over the .blend file association. To get rid of an old version afterwards, uninstall it through Windows Settings like any other application.
From the zip. Download the new zip, extract it wherever you keep Blender, and run blender.exe. No admin rights, no Start menu entry, no file association — you can register the association yourself from Preferences ▸ System ▸ Register, or by running blender -r.
The manual makes the useful point explicitly: you do not have to overwrite your existing installation, and running several versions side by side is perfectly normal. A folder each for blender-5.2 and blender-4.5 costs a few hundred megabytes and removes all the risk from upgrading.
From the Microsoft Store. Nothing to do. Updates download and install themselves.
Watch the CPU architecture. Blender ships x64 and arm64 builds for Windows. On an arm64 machine the x64 build will run, but you are leaving performance behind for no reason.
Updating on macOS
Download the new DMG, open it, and drag Blender.app into Applications, overwriting the version already there.
To keep both, rename the existing app — Blender 4.5.app — or move it into a subfolder before you copy the new one in. Blender does not care what the bundle is called.
macOS may ask for approval the first time a freshly downloaded build launches, depending on your Security and Privacy settings. That is Gatekeeper, not a problem with the download.
Updating on Linux
From blender.org. Download the tarball, extract it to wherever you keep applications — ~/software, /usr/local, your choice — and run the executable. Extract with tar, not 7-zip: 7-zip extraction is explicitly unsupported and produces a broken tree.
tar -xf blender-5.2.1-linux-x64.tar.xz -C ~/software/
~/software/blender-5.2.1-linux-x64/blender
Old versions keep working from their own folders, so this is the easiest platform on which to run several releases at once.
From snap. snap install blender --classic if you have not already; updates then arrive automatically, and snap refresh blender pulls one immediately. This is the closest thing to an auto-updating Blender on Linux.
From your distribution's package manager. Update it with everything else. The trade-off documented in the manual: distribution packages can lag well behind the official release, and some are built without features — a few ship without Cycles GPU support for licensing reasons. If you want the current release on the day it lands, take the tarball instead.
Updating through Steam
Steam handles it. When an update is published, Steam downloads and applies it.
Two things to know. Steam decides when, so a release can arrive a day or two after blender.org has it. And a Steam install does not register .blend files with Blender on Windows or Linux, which catches people out when double-clicking a file opens the wrong application.
How to tell which version you are running
Open the splash screen — click the Blender icon in the top bar ▸ Splash Screen — and read the version in the top right of the splash image. What's New on that same splash opens the release notes for the build you are on, which is the fastest way to find out what you gained.
If you keep several versions installed, this is worth checking before you report a bug to an add-on developer. A surprising share of "it broke" reports turn out to be the wrong Blender.
What happens to your add-ons
This is where an otherwise clean upgrade goes wrong, so it gets a page of its own.
Each Blender version stores preferences, the startup file, and installed extensions in its own user directory, named after the version:
- Windows —
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\5.2\ - macOS —
~/Library/Application Support/Blender/5.2/ - Linux —
~/.config/blender/5.2/
A new version starts with an empty one. That is why the first launch shows a quick setup dialog offering Import Preferences From Previous Version, which copies the old version's preferences and startup files across, including installed add-ons and extensions (Blender Manual: Defaults).
Nothing was deleted if you clicked past it. The old folder is still on disk, and the import can be redone. Moving your add-ons and preferences to a new Blender version walks through the import, the manual copy, and what to do when an old add-on breaks the new install's startup.
One thing the import cannot fix: it does not check whether anything you own has a newer build. Extensions from a remote repository will offer their own updates once they are in place, but anything you installed from a .zip sits in a local repository where Blender never looks for a newer version — see how add-on updates actually work. A Blender upgrade is the natural moment to sweep your collection for compatible releases, and that sweep is entirely manual today. Closing that gap for developers, free, is what Project LEUC does.
Keeping several versions at once
Once two or three versions are installed, two chores appear: opening a scene in the version that made it, and keeping each version's add-ons in step. Both are bookkeeping rather than skill.
The manual approach is a folder per version and a habit of checking which Blender you are in. It works. If you would rather not think about it, our free desktop launcher reads a .blend header and opens the build that saved it, installs stable and daily builds with checksum verification, and copies add-ons between versions with a backup taken first. Windows only for now, and it does not touch the Blender you install yourself — it just finds it.
Do you need to update at all?
An honest answer: not always.
Update when a release fixes something you hit daily, adds a feature you would otherwise buy an add-on for, or your LTS is approaching end of support. Point releases within a version — 5.2.0 to 5.2.1 — are fixes only, and are close to risk-free.
Wait when you are mid-project on a deadline, when an add-on you depend on has not been rebuilt yet, or when you are on a studio pipeline that pins a version. There is no security-patch treadmill forcing your hand here.
Never upgrade the Blender you are rendering a sequence with. Finish the sequence.
Common problems
"I updated and my add-ons are gone." They are not gone. The new version has a new user directory. Import the old settings, or copy the folders across by hand — full instructions here.
"The new version will not start." Almost always an incompatible add-on running at registration. Launch with --factory-startup to load with nothing enabled, or use Load Factory Settings, then re-enable add-ons one at a time.
"My theme, keymap and asset libraries reset." Same cause as the add-ons: fresh user directory. Asset library paths in particular are stored per version and do not follow you — re-check Preferences ▸ File Paths after upgrading, as asset management covers.
"An old file looks wrong in the new version." Backward compatibility is good but not perfect across big feature changes. For a very old file, converting in steps through an intermediate release gives better results than one large jump.
"Blender is slower to start than it used to be." Not the update. Every enabled add-on runs its registration code at launch, and importing your old setup brings all of them along — why Blender takes minutes to start has the measurements.
"I want to go back." Install the old version again from blender.org previous versions. Its user directory is untouched, so it picks up exactly where you left it. Files you saved in the newer version are the only thing that will not come back cleanly.
Disclosure
Project LEUC is my project. It is free, has no paid tier, and is mentioned here because add-on updates are the part of a Blender upgrade nothing currently handles for you.