Tails includes an automatic mechanism to upgrade a USB stick to the latest version of Tails. When an automatic upgrade is performed, only an *upgrade package* is downloaded. The upgrade package contains all the changes made to Tails since Tails was first installed or was last manually upgraded.

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.

<p>Your Persistent Storage will be preserved by both automatic and
manual upgrades.</p>

After starting Tails and connecting to Tor, *Tails Upgrader* automatically checks if upgrades are available and then proposes you to upgrade your USB stick. The upgrades are checked for and downloaded through Tor.

Requirements:

If you decide to do the upgrade, click on **Upgrade now**, and follow the assistant through the upgrade process.

<h1 id="manual">Manual upgrade using <i>Tails Cloner</i></h1>

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

You want to upgrade by cloning from another Tails USB stick which is already up-to-date, for example, when working offline or with a slow Internet connection.

After connecting to Tor, a dialog informs you if you have to upgrade your USB stick using *Tails Cloner* to a newer version of Tails.

To do a manual upgrade, you can either:

<h2 id="download">Download and upgrade</h2>

Another empty USB stick <small>(at least 8 GB)</small>&nbsp;[[!toggle id="why_extra" text="Why?"]]

½ hour to download Tails (<small class="remove-extra-space">[[!inline pages="inc/stable_amd64_iso_size" raw="yes" sort="age"]]</small>)

<span class="hide">[[!toggle id="why_extra" text=""]]</span>
<p>It is currently impossible to manually upgrade a Tails USB stick
while running from itself. This scenario requires creating an
intermediary Tails on another USB stick, from which to upgrade your
Tails.</p>

See our instructions on how to do a manual upgrade by:

<p>Downloading and upgrading from Windows might be less secure if your
Windows has viruses. But, it might be more convenient and faster.</p>

<h2 id="clone">Upgrade by cloning from another Tails</h2>

If you know someone you trust who already did the upgrade, you can upgrade your Tails by cloning from their Tails.