Why do you need to export a WordPress site?
Sometimes, you will need to migrate your WordPress site to a new domain or web host. In that case, you need to export your site to generate a backup of your site in the form of a tar.gz or zip file. Thanks to that, you can restore all vital information including the database, media files, plugins, and themes from your old website to another domain easily.
How to export your WordPress site?
Nowadays, in addition to the manual method, there are multiple WordPress Exporter Plugins that help you export your website effectively. Using plugins is regarded as the easiest way for those without technical knowledge. In addition, it also works more smoothly than other methods.
In today’s tutorial, we are going to guide you on how to export your WordPress site with two methods:
- Using built-in tools from your navigation menu
- Exporting your website with a third-party plugin
Solutions
Method 1: Export your WordPress site using the built-in Export tool
To export your site from the navigation menu, follow these steps.
Step 1: Visit Tools > Export on your dashboard. Now, in the export section, there are several options for you to choose from:
- All contents: Exports all content related to Post, Page, Menu, Custom field, and Custom Post Type.
- Posts: This allows you to export post-related content.
- Pages: This only lets you export page-related content.
Step 2: Simply choose the type of data that you want to export.
Step 3: Once you have made your choice, click on the Download Export File button.
This will download a .xml file to your computer
In addition, if you want to upload this export file to the new site, follow the steps below:
Step 1: Log in to the new site that you want to import to
Step 2: Visit Tools > Import. This brings you to the import screen
Step 3: Take a look at the WordPress option at the bottom of the screen. Click on “Install Now”
Step 4: After installing, click on Run Importer. It takes you to the page where you can upload files.
Step 5: Click on the Choose file button to select your file from your computer and then hit the Upload file and import button.
In general, this method is quite easy to use; however, one of its biggest drawbacks is that it requires a lot of steps. For this reason, developers have released a wide range of powerful tools that help you quickly migrate your website within a few clicks. We will show this in the next section.
Method 2: Using the UpdraftPlus Plugin to export your WordPress site
UpdraftPlus is regarded as one of the most popular and highly rated scheduled backup plugins in the world. It integrates with a wide range of common remote cloud storage services such as UpdraftVault, Rackspace Cloud, FTP, DreamObjects, and much more. Moreover, it will help you automatically create backups of your site.
Now, let’s follow the steps below to easily export your WordPress site.
Step 1: Install and activate the UpdraftPlus Plugin
As with other plugins, you first need to install and activate it. Just go to Plugins > Add New and then enter the plugin’s name in the search bar. Now click on the Install Now button and activate it.
Step 2: Configure the settings by following these steps:
- Go to Settings > UpdaftPlus Backups in your WordPress navigation menu. Select the Settings tab.
- Here, you can set the files backup schedule and the database backup schedule from the drop-down options. Choose the options that suit your site.
- You can optionally increase or decrease the number of scheduled backups
Scroll down the screen and you can select where you’d like to store your files. UpdraftPlus integrates with a wide range of remote storage options.
4. Choose where you would like to store your backups. In our example, we select Google Drive.
After you have chosen your remote cloud storage service, each storage option will have its own set of instructions. Simply follow them and click on the Save Changes button at the bottom of the screen.
Step 3: Create backups of your site.
Now, your storage location has been set up. UpdraftPlus will automatically back up your website without you needing to do anything.
However, you can manually create a backup at any time by clicking on the Backup Now button.
This opens a popup window like the screenshot below. Here, you can choose to back up the database and/or files, and whether to send the backup to remote storage. Then click on the Backup Now button.
After that, UpdraftPlus will generate backup zip files of your site.
After the backup process is complete, scroll down to the bottom of the page, where you will see Existing backups. You can easily download them to your computer by clicking on each button, as in the screenshot below.
Note: If you want to restore backup data, you can click on the blue Restore button below the Actions section.
This will open the Restoration popup window. Here, you can choose which elements you want to restore. Then click on the Next button to move to the next page. Now press Restore again to proceed.
After the restore has been completed, a message will pop up telling you that it was successful.
Summary
We have shared the two most popular methods to help you export your site with little effort. We hope this tutorial helps you master the website export process.
If you have any queries or need our support, feel free to mention it in the comment section below. We will reply as soon as possible.
In addition, we have collected a list of excellent WordPress Migrate site plugins that you can visit for more options to help you migrate your site with ease.
