Moving all of wordpress.com web site (media, plugins etc) to self-hosted site

  • Unknown's avatar
    drbonakdarian · Member ·

    I’m new to WP – I threw together a prototype website on wordpress.com (https://drbonakdarian.wordpress.com/) and now am trying to move this to a self-hosted server. From reading docs etc it seems I also need to move the database and wp-content/plugins and wp-content/upload folders along with the .xml file that export generates. I can get the .xml file and import it, but is it possible to get the database and the contents of the wp-content folders?

    I.e., I’d like to have everything look the same on my own server as it does on the wordpress.com site after I migrate it. Or is it impossible to migrate everything from a wordpress.com site to different server?

    Thanks.

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    Howdy @drbonakdarian, to move from WordPress.com you’ll actually want to use these steps:

    https://move.wordpress.com

    We don’t offer direct access to the file structure or database, but those steps work.

  • Unknown's avatar
    drbonakdarian · Member ·

    Hi there,

    I had tried the “export” / “import” route, as I mentioned in my original post, I am unable to get my contents (i.e., media, images, etc) this way, plus I don’t think the database gets transferred.

    If they do get transferred (sort of hard to imagine in 920k) I can’t seem to restore the site properly.

    Is it just not possible to get this site transferred so that it looks the same after the transfer? This is not a blog if that matters.

    Thanks

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    I am unable to get my contents (i.e., media, images, etc) this way, plus I don’t think the database gets transferred.

    It will work if you use those steps. The XML contains all of your post / comments / menu data. It also contains data about the images, and links to the files themselves. The importer will then grab the images and import them into your installation, so long as those steps are followed. You may also need to be sure you haven’t done extra “locking down” on the server, since it will need to import into your wp-content/uploads directory for you.

    As for whether we can make it look the same with those steps: not exactly. As mentioned in this step, the theme settings are not exportable. You can install the theme on the new server though, then configure it, then import the content, as outlined in the steps.

  • Unknown's avatar
    drbonakdarian · Member ·

    Ok, thanks, I got it to work (more or less) – not all of my images in my media library transferred over, but I was able to do this manually.

    I appreciate you taking the time to reply.

    —

    Aside/Personal observation: WP seems very powerful with a large set of features, however I find the user interface not particularly intuitive – speaking as a long time software developer and computer scientist. I will invest the time to become more familiar with the system however, I was hoping to teach my students WP.com, but I am sure they would be confused, e.g., the distinction of edit vs customize when on a page.

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    @drbonakdarian if it’s a lot of images, you can try deleting the associated posts (removing from the trash as well), then re-importing. Sometimes hosts will time out on those downloads, but re-running that import will fix it. It’ll skip whatever is already imported.

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