Transcript
Introduction
Today, we will look at how to export and import data from one WordPress website to another. To put it differently, you can use the Import and Export options to find a new house for your content on WordPress. If you decide to export, your site’s content is downloaded into an XML file that you can import to another WordPress site.
Exporting
If you are ready to export, navigate to Tools and click on Export. Below, Choose what to export; you can decide to export all content, only posts, only pages, or only media. Let’s select All content and then click on Download Export File. Now, we can go ahead and save the XML file to our computer.
Importing
This is a fresh installation of WordPress with no posts, media, or pages. I would like to import the XML file from our previous site into this new site. Go to Tools and click on Import. We are after the WordPress Importer right at the bottom. Let’s go ahead and click on Install Now. When it is installed successfully, we can click on Run Importer. Next, we can choose the XML file we exported from our other website. Click on Upload File and Import. To import media successfully, remember to select Download and Import File Attachments. Please note that unattached media in the Media Library that has not been embedded into a post or page will not be included in the XML export file. Now, we can go ahead and click Submit.
This may take a few seconds. Now we can go and check out everything that has been imported. So let’s make our way to Posts. Here are all the posts from our other website—all the media, all the pages, and all the comments to posts. Because it’s the same theme, we can make our way to the Site Editor. We’ll notice that our navigation menus, templates, and header and footer template parts have transferred over from the other website.
Migration plugin
If the website you are importing to has a different theme than the one you are exporting from, you will first need to install and activate the original theme on your new site. Please note that transferring content to a new website does not include the site’s design, themes, or plugins. However, you can use a migration plugin to transfer the entire site.
Importing content from other platforms
When you go to Import, you will notice there are other systems you can import posts or comments from, such as Blogger, Live Journal, and even Tumblr. There is also an option or plugin to convert existing categories to tags or vice versa.
Conclusion
I hope you feel more comfortable using the exporting and importing tools.