Migrate your WordPress Website
There are plenty of articles out there on ‘How to Migrate a WordPress Site‘, all with different steps using different software. The list of ways of how to migrate a WordPress site is pretty large;
It starts with manual migrations, using options such as WP Manage, or GoDaddy Prosites, plugins like All-in-One WP Migration or Duplicator, Hostings with built in migration tools – cPanel has Installatron, Managed WordPress has its own, etc.
I have spent years learning how to migrate WordPress sites, and have migrated hundreds of them in that time, so I will make this easy on you.
Out of all the methods I have used to migrate a WordPress website, this one is by far my favorite, and has saved me so much time over the years!…
All-in-One WP Migration
This WordPress Migration plugin is one of the best, and my favorite. It basically works by installing the plugin to the original site that you are migrating – the source site – and downloading a .wpress file to your computer.
Then, simply install a brand new WordPress site on the destination, install All-in-One WP Migration plugin, make sure the correct domain is attached to the site, and import the site! That’s it.
Let’s check out some step by step instructions.
Step 1. Export
First, you will need to install the All-in-One WP Migration Plugin, and activate it. Login to the WordPress dashboard of the site you are about to migrate, the source, and once activated, look for All-in-One WP Migration in the left hand column. It is usually near the bottom.
Click on All-in-One WP Migration, and then click ‘Export’. This will bring you to a new page in the dashboard, that will ask you ‘Export to?’ Choose ‘Export to File’.
Once it finishes generating, click the ‘Download’ button. This will simply save the .wpress file to your downloads folder on your local computer.
Step 2. Install WordPress
Now that you have downloaded a copy of your website to your local computer, it is time to get the new website/hosting ready. To do so, we are going to install a brand new WodrdPress onto it.
For example, we used to be Techsnob.net, until we purchased DigitallyThrive.com. We exported the techsnob.net .wpress file to the computer, and then installed a new WordPress on DigitallyThrive.com, which was to be our new site.
For CPANEL hosting, jump into the cpanel admin, the control center. Find the ‘Software’ section. Click on ‘Installatron Applications Installer’.
Make sure you are on ‘Application Browser’ on the top right. Sort through all of the apps you can install, and find WordPress under CMS. Click on WordPress.
Follow the instructions to install WordPress, make sure you select the correct domain name – note that the user/pw/email won’t really matter as we will overwrite these soon.
Step 3. Install All-in-One WP Migration
For the fastest method of uploading a website, you will need a version of All-in-One WP Migration that allows ‘restores’ from backups.
Instead of trying to let WordPress upload 1GB-2GB site using PHP, upload the .wpress file directly into the file manager. This will save you hours!
Increase 512M Limit
IF you already have the PREMIUM version of All-in-One WP Migration, just skip ahead to Step 4.
Basically, you need to download an older version of the plugin (v6.77), this version does not block you from changing the values in the constants.php file – allowing you to change upload file limit to 10GB if you wanted to.
Step 3-A. Activate Plugin
Download the zip file of All-in-One WP Migration version 6.77 here.
Inside of your hosting, go to your file manager, and upload the .zip file to your /wp-content/plugins folder. Once it uploads, extract it. You should have a folder inside of plugins called ‘All-in-One WP Migration’.
Login to your WordPress Dashboard and make sure All-in-One WP Migration is activated.
Step 3-B. Locate Plugin Folder
In cPanel, click on File Manager, then go to the wp-content/plugins directory. Open up All-in-One WP Migration folder. We will need to replace some code here.
Step 3-C. Edit Constants.php
Right click on the file ‘constants.php’, and click ‘Edit’, and ‘Edit’ again if a pop up box appears. This will allow you to edit the code.
We are changing the upload_max_filesize.
Scroll down to line 284 of the constants.php file to the Max File Size section, and add *20 next to the existing number as shown below:
Save your changes. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and hit update to save your changes.
// =================
// = Max File Size =
// =================
define( 'AI1WM_MAX_FILE_SIZE', 536870912 * 20 );
Step 4. Upload .wpress file
Now that your plugin as been activated, you are able to upload your .wpress file.
It took me many times to get this, but I had no idea you could upload this .wpress file through File Manager, and save hours of my time!
Jump back into File Manager, and jump into the wp-content folder. Notice the folder at the top, called
Step 5. Restore Backup of .wpress file
After you have uploaded it, the hard part is over. Jump back into the WordPress dashboard.
On the left-side menu, click ‘All-in-One WP Migration’, and then click ‘Backups’.
On the upper right, click ‘Restore’, and then click ‘proceed’ to overwrite the current new site.
This will completely move over your entire WordPress site, onto a new URL or server, and change all URL’s for you to work on the new server!
This is by far the easiest method I have used.
