What's new in Joomla 5.3

On April 15, 2025, Joomla 5.3 is released. If you have a website with Joomla version 4.x or 5.x, you can update your Joomla website with 1 push of a button. This release brings many small (code) improvements and there will be a number of options and features added. In this article I will show you the most important changes.

Send a test email in Joomla has been improved

Sending a test email in Joomla can be done via System > General Settings > Tab: Server

Nothing has changed on this screen but the operation of the button has been significantly improved.

You are probably used to the mail is sent from"info@mywebsite.com" and sent to"info@mywebsite.com". (in the above example).

From Joomla 5.3, the mail is sent from"info@mywebsite.com" but the recipient is now the mail address of the user who clicks the button. This way you can conveniently check if the email works, on your client's website for example, without the client having to ask if the email arrives. You now receive the test email yourself.

View the history of scheduled tasks in Joomla

In the screen of scheduled tasks (via system > Scheduled tasks) is a new button to view the history of these tasks.

This button takes you to the page with all the times a scheduled task has been executed.

This overview gives you the following information (from left to right):

• Title of the task
• Type of the task
• Total number of times executed
• Last execution
• How long this task took
• Exit code (status of the task) Learn more about these codes in the knowledge base article "scheduled tasks"
• Next execution.
• ID

You can delete the specific rules, or clear the complete history, using the buttons at the top of this page.

New folder for files in Joomla 5.3

When you need to upload files for your website, such as terms and conditions.pdf, a video or files that can be downloaded by the visitor, the images folder was quickly misused for that. This is not always logical of course, so in Joomla 5.3 there is a new folder created.

The folder "files" is a physical folder in your Joomla installation.

Within media management, this folder can also be called.

So we keep the structure neat and orderly.

It is not directly possible to upload all file types, because of the security of your website.

Via Content > Media > Options (top right button) you get to the settings of this section, here you need to add the correct values at Allowed extensions, Allowed document extensions (file types), Allowed MIME types.

In this same screen, you also need to change the Path to file folder. This defaults to "images" and you can now change it to "files".

Read more in Articles - News flash module

A new setting allows site administrators to show or hide the article title in "Read More" links.

HTML Email templates - Improved

The email template view now has access to template parameters, making it easier to customize outgoing messages.

Add a temporary debug line in layouts/joomla/mail/mailtemplate.php around line 34: var_dump($extraData);die();

PHP 8.4 compatibility

Joomla 5.3 includes important changes to ensure compatibility with PHP 8.4, which helps keep the site ahead of future updates. See: https: //github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/45255

Minor tweaks:

In addition to the above innovations, minor tweaks have also been made.

• The user filter in Action Log has been changed to User field-type
• The overrides screen now shows the original files and differences when you created a plugin override.
• Better handling of tag aliases, SEF URLs and improved detection of infected URLs make your site's links more consistent and SEO-friendly.
• Joomla continues to transition to "typed event classes" in core plugins, which improves readability and IDE support.
• When you edit a contact page in the frontend, this is now properly reflected in action logs.
• Icons in the contact component are now fully accessible to screen readers, improving the experience for all users.
• Email addresses in results in com_finder are now better protected.
• When Slim Search plugins are disabled you now get the following notification in the Slim Search component. "The Smart Search plugins are disabled. Content changes will not update the Smart Search index if you do not enable these plugins."
• The accessibility plugin has been updatedto Sa11y 4.0.3.