Andrew Benton

How to Transfer Your Wordpress Install to A New Host

Dec 19 at 8:08am by Andrew Benton

So, for whatever reason, be it Digg effect, the fact your girlfriend doesn’t like the name, or  you just can’t stand the service, you decide you’re going to switch webhosts.  Or, for that matter, going to switch your Wordpress install to another domain/subdomain.  While for inter-domain transfers you could probably get away by just moving the directory (carefully), when you switch to a new host, the question becomes, “How do I save all my stuff?”

Well, that’s where the awesome export/import feature comes in with Wordpress.  Here in easy to follow steps is how to backup and restore your wordpress install:

1. Login to Admin Panel, then go to Manage > Export … Select all in the drop down menu to get all authors posts
2. Click Download Export File, save it locally.
3. Once you have setup your new hosting service, do a fresh install of Wordpress (I’d make sure it’s the same version).
4. Login to the Admin Panel and go to Manage > Import, choose Wordpress.
5. Click ‘Browse’ and choose the file (XML) that you currently have saved from Step 2.

The only thing this doesn’t cover, unfortunately, is themes and plug-ins, but those are as easy as uploading and re-activating.

Backing Up Themes/Plugins
The easiest way to do this would just to get on FTP and copy the folders.  They are located in ‘wp-content/themes’ and ‘wp-content/plugins’ respectfull.