Importing from another blog

By Joe Gardiner Thursday, 3rd March 2011

Importing from another WordPress blog is a quick way of copying your site. Whether you need to move from one host to another, create a development copy of your site, or create a backup, exporting and importing a WordPress blog is the easiest way to do this.

Getting Started

The first thing you need to do is log in to your WordPress blog. As usual go to your sites URL and stick /wp-admin on the end. Enter your login details to get to the WordPress dashboard.

Wordpress Login screen

Exporting

In the sidebar find the Tools tab and expand it by clicking on the arrow if it isn’t already. Under the Tools tab are the two options Import and Export.

The first step is to export from the blog you wish to migrate. Go ahead and click the Export button now. In the Export screen you have the option to export, Posts, Pages or everything. Make your choice and click the Download Export File button.

Wordpress Export Screen

You will then be asked where you want to save the Export file. Choose a location and download the file.

This file contains all of the data necessary to recreate your WordPress site on a fresh installation.

Importing

To import your site into another WordPress instance follow the same steps above to find the Tools tab in the WordPress dashboard. This time choose the Import option.

You will be given a list of systems to import, but in this case it will be just be WordPress. Go ahead and choose WordPress as your system.

Click the Choose File button to navigate to the location of the export file you downloaded earlier.

Wordpress import screen

When you have located the file, click the Upload File and Import button to watch the progress. Your new WordPress instance will now contain all the content from your previous blog!


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