You can find the tutorial on how to use installr to update RStudio on R-Statistics website. The R code you will need for updating R is: (credit goes to Cara Wogsland for the code) Installr is the R package which helps install and update software. Take note of your previous packages so you can install them again as needed. I would recommend to save your time from headache and use this method.

Update : For Mac users, solution 3 is too painful and not working well for me. The new R version appear right after I install R and restart RStudio The new R version will be loaded automatically. The first method is to download a new version of R from R website > CRAN. 3 Solutions to update R on RStudio Solution 1) Manually install (Recommended if you don't care about the old packages) Note that we need to move the install R packages, which I will show how at the end. Here are 3 ways you can update R version in RStudio. So it is required extra procedures to move the packages. After you install the new version, the previously installed packages will not go to next version. RStudio and R cannot update on their own because some packages may not work after switching to the new version (You can still downgrade R version in RStudio if something went wrong though). So I explore some ways to update R and would like to share with someone who is also looking to update R on RStudio. Today I just noticed I cannot install new R packages because of my old R version. I installed RStudio and R a year ago, and never update it since then.

When was the last time you update your R and RStudio?

Updating r packages