WordPress 5.2 Beta 3 is now available!

This software is still in development, so we don’t recommend you run it on a production site. Consider setting up a test site to play with the new version.

There are two ways to test the latest WordPress 5.2 beta: try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want to select the “bleeding edge nightlies” option), or you can download the beta here (zip).

WordPress 5.2 is slated for release on April 30, and we need your help to get there! Thanks to the testing and feedback from everyone who tried beta 2, nearly 40 tickets have been closed since then. Here are the major changes and bug fixes:

• The new Site Health feature has continued to be refined.
• Plugins no longer update if a site is running an unsupported version of PHP (see #46613).
• It’s now more apparent when a site is running in Recovery Mode (see #46608).
• The distraction free button no longer breaks keyboard navigation in the Classic Editor (see #46640).
• Assistive technologies do a better job of announcing admin bar sub menus (see #37513).
• Subject lines in WordPress emails are now more consistent (see #37940).
• Personal data exports now only show as completed when a user downloads their data (see #44644).
• Plus more improvements to accessibility (see #35497 and #42853).

Minimum PHP Version Update

Important reminder: as of WordPress 5.2 beta 2, the minimum PHP version that WordPress will require is 5.6.20. If you’re running an older version of PHP, we highly recommend updating it now, before WordPress 5.2 is officially released.

Developer Notes

WordPress 5.2 has lots of refinements to polish the developer experience. To keep up, subscribe to the Make WordPress Core blog and pay special attention to the developers notes for updates on those and other changes that could affect your products.

How to Help

Do you speak a language other than English? Help us translate WordPress into more than 100 languages! The beta 3 release also marks the soft string freeze point of the 5.2 release schedule.

If you think you’ve found a bug, you can post to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums. We’d love to hear from you! If you’re comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, file one on WordPress Trac, where you can also find a list of known bugs.

Would you look at that
each day brings release closer
test to be ready.