Own site files?

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  tidewatermedia · Member · Oct 6, 2015 at 12:58 am

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  I’m trying to help out a client who paid a designer to have a site created through WordPress. Does anyone know if there is a way to download the site files? Do the site files belong to WordPress or the designer?

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  designsimply · Member · Nov 10, 2015 at 3:38 pm

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  WordPress is open source, and so those source files are always available to download if needed. Those are the files that make the site work but not the content. The content a person adds into a WordPress site belong to the content author. WordPress has a built in way to backup the text content by going to Tools > Export in WP Admin. Backing up images is different and how to do will depend on the type of WordPress your client had setup with the previous designer. With either WordPress setup, if you export from the first site and then import into a temporary site while the original site is still online (that part is important), then you will get an option to include images in the import process. For that to work, the site with the images you want to back up must be up and running at the same domain where it was originally setup. Another option would be to download the image files from the wp-content/uploads/ folder on the web server if the site is a self-hosted WordPress.org setup (which it sounds to me like it is). Note that WordPress.com sites do not have FTP access.

  In your case, it sounds like what you may also want to get is the theme files and those can either be given to you by the designer if you request them or you can download the ones saved on the web server from the wp-content/themes/ folder.

  There is a lot of detailed information about backing up and moving WordPress sites at https://codex.wordpress.org/Moving_WordPress which will help you. Read the instructions carefully.

  If you are not sure how to download content from the web server, contact your client’s web hosting provider and they should be able to help you.

  Because the site you are asking about is probably not setup here at WordPress.com (see http://support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/ to learn about the differences), you should ask in the volunteer-based WordPress.org forum at http://wordpress.org/support/ or ask your client’s web host directly if you need further help.

  If I have made an incorrect assumption and the blog you’re talking about is hosted on WordPress.com, please let me know because the instructions will be a bit different.