[[!meta title="Upgrading a Tails USB stick or SD card"]]

Tails includes an automatic mechanism to upgrade a USB stick to
a newer version. In some cases, it is impossible to do an **automatic upgrade**
and you might have to do a **manual upgrade**. This page describes both techniques.

<div class="caution">

Our upgrades always fix important security issues so it is important to do them
as soon as possible.

</div>

Both techniques only work if the upgraded device, USB stick or SD card, was
installed using <span class="application">Tails Installer</span>. **The
persistent storage on the device will be preserved.**

<div class="note">

<p>If you use Tails from a DVD, you need to [[burn a new DVD|install/dvd]].</p>

<p>If you use Tails from a USB stick installed from Mac OS X using the
command line, you need to [[reinstall|install/mac/usb/overview]].</p>

</div>

[[!toc levels=2]]

<a name="automatic"></a>

Automatic upgrade using <span class="application">Tails Upgrader</span>
=======================================================================

After starting Tails and connecting to Tor, <span class="application">Tails
Upgrader</span> automatically checks if upgrades are available and then
proposes you to upgrade your device. The upgrades are checked for and downloaded
through Tor.

The advantages of this technique are the following:

  - You only need a single Tails device. The upgrade is done on the fly from a
    running Tails. After upgrading, you can restart and use the new version.
  - The upgrade is much smaller to download than a full ISO image.
  - The upgrade mechanism includes cryptographic verification of the upgrade.
    You don't have to verify the ISO image yourself anymore.

Requirements:

  - A Tails device, USB stick or SD card, installed using
    <span class="application">Tails Installer</span>.
  - An Internet connection.

After connecting to Tor, if an upgrade is available, a dialog box appears and
proposes you to upgrade your device.

[[!img upgrader.png link=no]]

<div class="note">

<ul>
<li>It is recommended to close all the open applications during the
upgrade.</li>
<li>Downloading the upgrade might take a long time, from several minutes to a
few hours.</li>
<li>The networking will be disabled after downloading the upgrade.</li>
</ul>

</div>

If you decide to do the upgrade, click on <span
class="guilabel">Upgrade now</span>,
and follow the assistant through the upgrade process.

<div class="note">

If you missed an upgrade, each upgrade will be installed one after the
other. For exemple, if you have a Tails 1.3 and the current version
is 1.3.2, then the upgrade to 1.3.1 will be installed, and after you restart Tails, the
upgrade to 1.3.2 will be installed.

</div>

<div class="tip">

<p>If you cannot upgrade at startup (for example if you have no network
connection by then), you can start <span class="application">Tails
Upgrader</span> later by opening a terminal and executing the following
command:</p>

<pre>tails-upgrade-frontend-wrapper</pre>

</div>

[[!inline pages="doc/first_steps/upgrade/release_notes.inline" raw="yes"]]

If an error occurs, the assistant proposes you to read one of the following
pages:

  - If an error occurs while checking for available upgrades:<br/>
    [[file:///usr/share/doc/tails/website/doc/upgrade/error/check.en.html|upgrade/error/check]]
  - If an error occurs while download the upgrade:<br/>
    [[file:///usr/share/doc/tails/website/doc/upgrade/error/download.en.html|upgrade/error/download]]
  - If an error occurs while installing the upgrade:<br/>
    [[file:///usr/share/doc/tails/website/doc/upgrade/error/install.en.html|upgrade/error/install]]

<a name="manual"></a>

Manual upgrade using <span class="application">Tails Installer</span>
=====================================================================

[[!inline pages="doc/first_steps/upgrade/release_notes.inline" raw="yes"]]

It might not always be possible to do an automatic upgrade as described above.
For example, when:

  - No automatic upgrade is available from our website for this version.
  - The automatic upgrade is impossible for technical reasons (not enough
    memory, not enough free space on the device, etc.).
  - You want to upgrade from another Tails device which already has a newer
    version installed, for example when working offline.
  - The automatic upgrade failed and you need to repair a Tails device.

In this case, <span class="application">Tails Installer</span> allows you to
manually upgrade a USB stick or SD card to a newer version of Tails.
To do so, follow our [[manual upgrade instructions|/upgrade]].

<div class="tip">

To know your version of Tails, choose
<span class="menuchoice">
  <span class="guimenu">Applications</span>&nbsp;▸
  <span class="guisubmenu">Tails</span>&nbsp;▸
  <span class="guimenuitem">About Tails</span>
</span>

</div>
