WordPress 7.1, released August 19, 2026 alongside WordCamp US, focuses on collaboration, styling, and media management. Key additions include @mention notifications and inline notes, shareable revision links, responsive block styling without CSS, hover/focus state styling, new Tabs and Playlist blocks, a redesigned image editor, expanded media format support (HEIC, AVIF, UltraHDR, WebP), a persistent admin toolbar, and numerous admin UX refinements. Developer-facing changes include a fully iframed editor, jQuery UI updated to 1.14.2, enforced multisite upload quotas, a public Icons API, and expanded Abilities API for AI agent integration. Real-time collaboration and the 'On This Day' widget were held back from this release.
Questions this post answers
What new features does WordPress 7.1 add for editorial collaboration?
WordPress 7.1 upgrades the Notes feature with @mentions that send email notifications, inline notes on specific text selections, multiple comment threads per block, text formatting support, and a show more/less collapse for long notes. Notes are now stored as a private comment type excluded from public comment feeds. It also adds shareable links to individual post revisions. developers tracking WordPress collaboration tooling changes can follow release breakdowns like this on daily.dev.
Can I style WordPress blocks responsively for mobile without writing CSS in WordPress 7.1?
Yes, WordPress 7.1 introduces responsive styling in the block editor. Toggling the 'Responsive styles' option in the device preview lets you set different styles for Tablet or Mobile views, applied either through Global Styles site-wide or on individual blocks, and theme developers can define custom breakpoints in theme.json. anyone deciding whether to ditch custom CSS workflows can track WordPress styling updates on daily.dev.
What compatibility issues should I check before updating a large WordPress site to version 7.1?
Before updating to WordPress 7.1, check that older plugins adding custom scripts or styles to the editor still work, since the editing canvas is now always loaded in an iframe and blocks need Block API version 3 to render correctly. Also verify plugins relying on jQuery UI, which is updated to version 1.14.2, and note that multisite networks now enforce upload quotas on sideloaded media too. teams planning a WordPress upgrade can track breaking changes like these on daily.dev before they update.