Do you want to move WordPress from a local server to a live site?
Using WordPress on a local server is a common way to work on your site in private. Eventually, you’ll need to move it to a live server to make it available for online visitors.
In this article, we’ll show you how to move WordPress from local server to live site, step by step.
0:00 Intro
0:27 Things to consider
2:24 Using All-in-One WP Migration
3:23 Using Duplicator
7:52 Duplicator settings
12:41 Importing site data
14:02 Deploying live
Related Links
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►All-in-One WP Migration https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-wp-migration/
►Duplicator https://wordpress.org/plugins/duplicator/
Top Resources
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►Best WordPress Contact Form Plugin https://wpforms.com/wpbeginner
►Best WordPress Analytics Plugin https://www.monsterinsights.com/
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►What is SEO and How Does it Work? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjfrzGeB5_g
►How to Install a WordPress Theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIPQRQLAz90
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In this video I'm going to show you how To take your local website and post it On a live server for example this is our Local website that I've created for this Demonstration beautiful looking website And if you go to the back end you'll see Everything has been designed perfectly It has a theme multiple plugins Everything is set up perfectly and this Is how a website would look like and if You go to a live server right now this Is how the website looks like it's not Technically a website it's just a Default blank WordPress install if you Go to the backend you'll see nothing is Here there's no plugin installed it's a Complete blank WordPress install and We'll be taking this website right here Which is this one and just migrating the Entirety of this website on this new Server or a blank website setup now Couple of things to keep in mind before You begin and follow along this tutorial Uh the things that you need to have is You need to have WordPress setup on your Live server so whether whatever hosting You're using Bluehost site down any Other hosting make sure WordPress is Installed and if you if you haven't Started your website yet there'll be a Link down in the description to sign up With partner Bluehost and you'll be able To set up your WordPress website in just Maybe two minutes of time and
To keep in mind is that whatever domain Name you want to have for your live Website this domain name is already here This is also very important uh most Hosting providers including Bluehost Will assign you a temporary domain name Before you actually select a live domain Name if you have that do not perform the Migration first first connect your Actual domain name with the website and Only then perform the migration because A lot of the settings that will be Changing or will be changed Automatically will depend on the domain Name so make sure everything is set up Correctly so once you have this once you Have a blank WordPress installed and you Have connected with the right domain Name you can follow along this process So let me explain how the process Actually works thinking about is how Does one migrate to website a WordPress Website is just a collection of files Folders themes and a few settings right So if you take all those files the Database files the images everything and Just migrated to another server change Some settings technically everything Should work on the new website as well Now it's easier said than done because It's a technically challenging to do all Of this manually and of course WordPress Has a lot of solutions where you can use Plugins to lose and exactly this is what
We'll be doing as well we'll be using Plugins to perform this task and make it Easier on us now I'm going to be Discussing two different ways or two Different I say plugins and you'll Understand why I have our different Plugins or I'll be talking about two Different plugins the first plugin that You can use absolutely for free is Called All in One WP migration and I'm Not going to specifically talk about This plugin but I say every single free Plugin that I've used uh you you have a Similar workflow that allows you to Create one package file migrated to a Site I'm going to demonstrate this in a Moment and then uh migrate your site Over to a live website now the only Limitation not with this plugin but also Almost every single plugin that they Have certain limits that you have to Adhere to and these plug-in limits are Mostly related to how what size your Database can be what is the number of Plugins you can have and overall what is The uh amount of like say what's overall Size of your package that you're trying To migrate and anything above 100 150 Megabytes usually are not allowed in the Free version of most of these plugins And that's where the problem happens is If you have a very tiny website then It's okay if you just have a couple of Plugins then it's workable but if you're
Designing your entire website like this Which is complete like ready to go live Then you will run into these limitations As well where you won't be able to Migrate your entire website using free Plugins now I'll give you another Solution and this the solution we'll be Using in this video and the Tax Solution I'm recommending is that you use a Plugin called duplicator Pro this is a Solution I'm going to recommend now just To clarify duplicator you don't have to Purchase the premium version you can Actually migrate entire website your Entire website regardless of the site is With just the free version as well but It's a little more technical so I Wouldn't advise it to everyone but if You are a little like technical printed And if you don't mind getting your hands Dirty with code and setting up databases There'll be a written guide link down in The description which you can go to you Can just use the free version follow Along the guide and you'll migrate your Entire website without having to pay a Penny but if you're like me you're not Technically oriented and you want to Just migrate your website in the easiest Way possible I would recommend duplicate The pro now another few benefits what I Say few more benefits of duplicated Pro Even they have to pay a little bit of Money is not only do you get the
Migration wizard which we'll be using You also get the website cloning wizard So let's say in the future you are Looking to migrate your website from one Hosting provider to another hosting Provider it can be done instantly Without having to purchase another Plugin you also have Cloud backups that Means you can backup your site and then Upload the backup to Google Drive Amazon S3 and other Cloud hosting providers you Can also have a sticker backups that Means you can backup your site you'll Also have backups scheduled that means You can schedule backups to be done Every day every second day every third Day every week and they'll be Automatically done you also have a Feature which is not listed here which Is called restore points which is this One click restore and what this feature Is that anytime you're making a website You can make a restore point and Anything goes wrong let's say you Install a malicious plugin the website Gets hacked whatever happens you you can Just one click and that restore point Will be instantly triggered and your Website will roll back to that instant Version this is a very very I say Awesome feature inside a WP or inside Duplicator which will help you be very Secure and be very confident about if Anything goes wrong you all already have
A rest open you can install restore Instantly without without having to Actually go to a backup so all these Features inside WP orange all these Features inside duplicator Pro make it a Really great choice to not only use for Migration but for backups as well so You're paying just a single amount or Paying once but getting all these Features and that's why my Recommendation goes to duplicate Pro and Again as I said you can use the free Version as well that's completely up to You I'm going to use the premium version I'm going to demonstrate how you can Migrate your entire website with Duplicated flow now please you'll have To make a purchase I already have made a Purchase I already have an account I Also have the duplicated plugin file Downloaded I'll show you how you should Do this first uh you will have to make a Purchase you'll have to create an Account which you'll learn in a minute So then you can log into your account by Clicking the My Account button and once You click inside your account or you Reach inside your account you'll see Something like this and you'll need to Go into downloads here and inside Downloads you'll be able to download the Duplicator plugin this will come as a Zip file because it's not available Is the demo website or this is the live
Website we'll start with the demo Website because that's where we are Going to first make a copy of the entire Website so I'll go here And this is the website I'm going to Install duplicator Pro on this website I'm going to plugins I'm going to add New I'm going to close this and since I'm Uploading a zip file not using the Search function not using the wp Repository I'm going to click upload Plugin I'm going to drag the zip file From my computer here And I'll let go and I'll click install This is how duplicator Pro will be Installed on your website and you have To follow the same process So the plugin is now installed let's Also activate the plugin So duplicate Pro is now installed we'll Also need to enter a license key to Activate the plugin and you can just Click this link here or you can go here And you can click activate your license Since you already have made a purchase Let's click here And this will take us inside duplicator Settings this is where we'll paste the License key And we'll say activate And now the license key has been Activated and just for Simplicity I'm Going to make this to info only so that
This I don't have to hide license key Anymore I just click this and close this Now duplicator pro has been installed on Our site it also has been activated and Now we'll start the process of creating A package which means having all your Database all your plugins everything That's on your site into a single zip File which we can then import onto a Live website for that we're going to Duplicate the settings here we'll go to Packages And inside the packages menu as I've Just installed the plugin there are no Packages and you can think of packages As backups so anytime you make a package Consider that as an entire backup of Your website and you can use the backup To restore your site or also migrate Your site let's start by creating a First package Inside by clicking create New this will start the process of Creating a package [Music] And this is the package creation menu Don't worry you don't have to worry About all these settings storage archive Installer you just have to remember this Name you can also customize this however I won't recommend it because it already Has the current date entered with your Site name which is very easy for you to Remember and also help you understand When a particular backup was made since
I'm recording this video right now it's 22nd of July or 22nd of June sorry 2023 So I already see this date here so if I Have multiple packages I can instantly Remember or instantly see which package Was missed on what date and you could Have notes associated with them as well Once you're ready once you've made the Changes once you've added a name you Have the template you don't worry about None of the settings you need to worry About just click the next button to get Started or move to the next step which Is scanning [Music] So when the scanning happens what Duplicator is doing is identifying Everything on your website that is Everything is in order before a package Is made and it might take some time so Let's hang on and wait for this process To finish Once the scan is complete you should see Something like this and you'll see most Of them are good good if your website is In good shape you might see some Warnings or notices and most of the time That's completely all right for example You see there's a size check here size Check is here because the website is Actually 478.67 megabytes this is the problem Which I was mentioning once your website Goes or it even has like 10 plugins it
Eventually reached a point where you Can't use free plugins to migrate your Website but this is completely all right Because uh duplicator can easily handle Large databases as well so you don't Need to worry about this and what you Need to do is a notice has been issued You'll be presented with another warning If there's a notice but in case of a Size check you can mostly ignore it There's no need to worry just click the Yes or check box and just click the Build button which will start the build Process And this is how the build process looks Like depending on how big your website Is it might take few minutes maybe five To ten minutes of your time so instead Of boring you I'll just cut the video to When the package has been complete So this took around five seven minutes Of time and now you can see the package Has been made you can see the name right Here you can see the size 235 megabytes Or 32 megabytes after compression and This is why you need a reliable plugin Because a lot of times free plugins will Not uh be able to upload this big of a File and compress uncompress it on a Live server and you'll run into problems So having a reliable plugin is very Important now you'll start by Downloading this package to a computer But if you click the download button
You'll press be presented with a couple Of options let's explore that once you Click download you'll see both files Which means both this and this but What's the installer now installer Includes the WordPress files as well so If you just have a basic server setup Nothing set up on that no WordPress Installed you can use the installer but In this case we're not going to use that Because you can just download the Archive to our computer and this will be A 250 megabyte file just click on that And the download will start in my case I'm using Google Chrome so the once that Is downloaded I'll just move it to a Safe place on my computer So the download is now complete I'll Click the downloads button and I'll show You the downloads right here what the Name is like I'll click this and you can See the recent download here which is This file which is downloaded onto my Computer and you see the name right here This is what you'll also see make sure That it's in a location that you Remember make sure to save your backups Into a certain location and now once This is done we'll once again go to our Live website and repeat the process by Installing the plugin first and we'll Install this setup or outside say this Package that we downloaded on the site The first thing we'll go do is we'll go
Here and this is the live website I Already showed you we'll go back here And we'll install the duplicator Pro Plugin once again so we'll go to plugins We'll go to add new And once again I'll click upload plugin I'll drag the zip file here I'll install the plugin here So the plugin is now installed let's Also activate the plugin And now once the plugin is activated It'll ask for the license key for the Complete activation take place once Again I'll click activate your license And this is where you will enter the License key I'll click activate And once again I'll make it info only Just to keep it safe now duplicator pro Has been installed on the live website Where we want to migrate our website Instead of going to packages we're going To go to import to start importing the Package that we just created I'll click Import And this is where we'll start importing The process now before I start import I Want to highlight a really cool feature Inside a duplicator which is import link And duplicate has this cool feature Where you can instead of downloading the Archive you can just migrate your Website directly from a cloud service or Just a link I just want to highlight
That this is a cool feature inside Duplicate as well what I'll do is here In the drag and drop location I'll drag That archive file here keep one uh in Mind depending on the size website it Might take 5 10 15 minutes for the Entire process to complete so once you Drag and drop just sit tight for 10 15 Minutes you don't have to do anything And of course I'll speed up the video or Cut that part out so let me just drag And drop the file here Now the process will begin again will Take 10-15 minutes of your time so have A coffee have some free time or just Have a drink and we'll back once this is Done So this took a good 15-20 minutes to Finish and now you see the file has been Imported it's ready to import you see All these green ticks here that means Everything has been detected perfectly What's the size everything is good to go And once you're ready once you see all These green takes no errors no warnings Then just click the continue button Right here And this will be a warning to you that Recovery point is not active this is not Very useful because we are working with A completely blank website but if you're Working with a website that already has Some content maybe you could set up a Recovery point in this case it's not
Very important so I'll just do is click The launch installer button And the installer has begun but we'll See have some warnings and we'll have to Just make sure that everything is in Place before we can start the install You'll see a lot of confirmation dialog Boxes here because we are going to Overwrite a lot of things on our website So it's just making sure that everything Is in place so here's the status what We're trying to do this will clear all The database I don't have to remind you That we're going to completely wipe Everything that's on the Target website Which is the live website and since the Blank install in my case I don't have to Worry but if you have something Important there back it up or just copy It somewhere else right you also see the Validation which is the recovery point Is not set that's completely fine the PHP migration is also different that's Also completely fine both phps are Compatible I've tested this out multiple Times if you have a different PHP Version on your local side versus your Live side in most cases it's not gonna Work or it's not gonna cause any Problems to you so once you see all of This all you have to do is go here at The bottom of the page click I have read All the terms and conditions or accept The terms and conditions and click the
Next button which will start the import Process so click at And once final confirmation you'll get Is hey this is what you're trying to do This is the install this is everything Else and just 20 database tables will Written everything as good to go once You've verified everything which we Already did just click the OK button And you'll start extracting the archive And this takes less than five minutes Because the upload process has already Been done you see it's already 50 let's Wait for a couple seconds So the import process has finished but We are not done the couple of steps Still remaining to finish the import Process the first thing is that you need To look at this and this might not be Appearing in your install what this is Saying is that hey you have a plugin Installed or you have a plugin installed On the local site which modified some Essential WordPress settings in my case It was WPS hide login which is useful For hiding your login URL for security Purposes and this has been disabled just To keep it simple for you keep in mind That you just need to enable the plugins To finish the process and once a more Important thing you need to click this Admin login button log in with your old Credentials because now everything has Been replaced you'll log in with your
Old credentials that were on the local Side and that's how you log in and once You log in with the new credentials or The old credentials then the setup file That we just imported will be deleted From the server and that is when the Entire setup process will be complete so I click the admin login button which Will open up on a new tab and now I log In with my old username and password for The local website so I'll type in my Username which was this have the Password copied just press Ctrl V I'll Log in And you can see directly as I've logged In this looks exactly like the local Website all the plugins have been Installed all the configuration has been Done and you can see this warning or I Say success message the site has been Successfully migrated and you'll have to Enable this plugin just I installed it Otherwise if you don't have similar Plugins you might not need to worry About this and if you have connected an External service like monster insights Or connecting with stripe to accept Payments you might need to reconnect Them because you've changed your domain Name as well apart from this everything Should be good to go let's open the Final site in a new tab just to see how It looks I'm going to show you one of This website as well it's start my
Starter WP website.com forward slash Live import which was the live URL which URL of the live site let it open up for The first time And the website has loaded up we can see It looks exactly like our local site it Has all the plugins installed you can go To different pages and it will appear Exactly how it was on local site and Just to give it a comparison I'll go Back here I'll open the local site this Is how local site looked like go to the About page everything is perfect and if You go back here and we also go to the Media library let's say we go here and We go to the media library You'll see all the media that we import On the site is also present here so let That mid Library open I'll show you Exactly how the website looks this is Exactly how the local website was and in The media library you can see all the Media is also being imported so I Already showed the plugins you can also Go into the post and check out all the Posts that have imported media import That means everything has been set up Correctly with such a easy setup process You don't have to worry about any tech Technical stuff anything database Related just make a package copy it and Just dump it on the live server and Everything will be taken care of by Duplicator That's The Power of
Duplicator and now you can use the other Benefits of duplicator like live Schedules backups restore points and Migration services to even enhance your Site and keep it even more secure and That's my reason for recommending the Duplicator plugin because it makes Everything so easy just migrating aside Is so easy backing up your site is easy Scheduling websites and scheduling Backups and restore points is also this Easy with duplicator so definitely check Out the website or check out the Plugin Or from duplicator.com I'll leave a link Down in the description of the CEO That's it for the video if you have any Questions the comment Box is open if you Like WordPress education you can Subscribe and like this video as well You're watching yuvraj from wpbeginner I'll catch you in the next video take Care
