Generally speaking, cloning is considered an unethical practice. However, when you think of cloning in terms of making a duplicate WordPress site, a whole new world of completely ethical possibilities can open up for your business. In this article, we will show you how to easily clone a WordPress site in 7 easy steps.
What is Cloning, and Why Use It?
The idea behind cloning a WordPress site is simple: you make an exact copy or duplicate of one WordPress site and apply it to another site.
You might be wondering, are there any good reasons to actually do this? Absolutely!
One practical scenario is when you are moving a WordPress site to a new web host or a new domain name. Cloning a site will save you hours of work.
Another possible use is when you are developing a site for a client on your local server. Once the project is done, you can duplicate the WordPress site and move it to your client’s live server.
Lastly, you can clone a live WordPress site to your local server for testing and development purposes.
Cloning a WordPress site is not that difficult at all. If you can point and click, then you can create a duplicate site in minutes.
Here’s a 7 step guide on how to easily clone a WordPress site, even if you’re a beginner!
Step 1. Cloning WordPress using Duplicator Plugin
For this article, we will be using the Duplicator plugin. It is a powerful WordPress backup and migration plugin built for beginners and professionals alike.
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Duplicator plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
The plugin works out of the box, and you can start using it without configuring any settings.
Step 2. Creating a WordPress Backup Using Duplicator
Duplicator allows you to clone your WordPress site by creating a backup and then unpacking it on a new location.
Let’s go ahead and create a WordPress backup package.
First, you need to visit the Duplicator » Packages page and click on the ‘Create New’ button at the top.
This will begin the Duplicator wizard where you need to click on the next button to continue.
Duplicator will now scan your website to check if everything is in order to run the plugin. If the plugin finds an issue, then you will see a warning here.
If everything is marked good, then you can go ahead and click on the ‘Build’ button to continue. Duplicator will now backup your WordPress database, images, templates, plugins, and all other files in a single downloadable package.
Step 3. Preparing to Clone Your WordPress Site
Once Duplicator has finished the backup process, you will see a link to download the archive which contains backup files and an installer script.
You need to click on the ‘One-click Download’ link to download both files to your computer.
Both of these files are extremely important to properly clone your WordPress site on the new location.
Step 4. Upload Archive and Installer to the New Location
Now that you have a complete backup of your site along with the Duplicator installer file, the next step is to upload them to the new location.
This new location can be a live website, or a site on your local server. If it is a site on your local server, then you just need to copy and paste the files into a subfolder inside your htdocs or www folder, like this:
C:\wamp\www\mynewsite\
If it is a live site on a different WordPress host, then you need to upload these files to the root directory using an FTP client.
No matter where you are copying the files, you need to make sure that the folder is completely empty and has no other files or folders inside it except installer.php file and your backup zip file.
Step 5. Running The Import Script
Now that all your files are in place, you need to run the Duplicator installer script.
Simply visit the new website in a web browser and add installer.php at the end of the URL.
http://example.com/installer.php
Don’t forget to replace example.com with your own domain name or the localhost address of your new site.
You will now see the Duplicator installer script on the screen. It will automatically look for the backup files and basic configuration settings. If everything looks good, then go ahead and check the terms and notices checkbox. After that, you can click on the next button to continue.
On the next screen, Duplicator will ask you to enter database information. This is the database you want to use for your new cloned WordPress site.
Don’t forget to click on the ‘Test Database’ button to make sure that the database information you entered is correct.
After that, click on the next button to continue.
Duplicator will now import your database and files. Next, it will ask you to update settings for the new site.
It will automatically detect the changes and fill in the URL, Path, and Title fields for you. You can just click on the ‘Next’ button to continue.
Duplicator will now finish the installation, and you will see the admin login button. Clicking on it will take you to the new cloned site’s WordPress admin area.
Step 6. Test Your Cloned Site
You can now go ahead and test your cloned WordPress site. We recommend testing both the admin area and front end of your website to make sure that all your data is there, and the website is working as intended.
If you run across any issues, then take a look at our guide on how to fix common WordPress errors.
Step 7. Delete Temporary Files
Once you are satisfied that everything is imported correctly, you can go ahead and delete the installation files created by the Duplicator plugin.
On your cloned WordPress site, go to Duplicator » Tools page and then click on ‘Remove Installation Files’ button.
That’s it, you have successfully cloned a WordPress site.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, cloning a WordPress site is not very hard as long as you are duplicating your own website. If you want to copy someone else’s WordPress site, then that’s actually illegal unless you have their explicit written permission.
There are definitely other ways to clone a WordPress site such as doing it manually which doesn’t even require WordPress admin access, but we believe there are no benefits to that unless you’re dealing with a really large website.
For majority of use-cases where you have to duplicate a WordPress site, we recommend using the above method because it’s the easiest and most comprehensive.
We hope this article helped you easily clone your WordPress site. You may also want to see our ultimate step by step guide to improve WordPress speed and performance.
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Everything s clear thank you but what about login and password to WordPress dashboard can we duplicate ?
It copies your users table so it would transfer your user and password over for you.
I’m having a bit of trouble with step 4. With my Hostgator account I don’t have access to my server panel but when I try to add the file via an FTP client, I’m under able to find the folder containing the installer.php. Am I missing something? Could the file name be different or could someone tell me where exactly to put the zip file?
You would want to reach out to your hosting provider and they would be able to assist
HI there, what if i have paid plugins and themes specific for 1 wordpress site
Will it still work ? Thanks alot, your tutorial so far is the easiest to follow
You would want to reach out to the support for those tools for how they handle that.
What do you do when there is a size check notice? Limit is 500mb and my site is 1.32gb uncompressed. Not sure how to compress. It is recommending a 2 part install manually from c panel which is sadly beyond my tech abilities.
You would want to reach out to your hosting provider’s support and they should be able to assist
uploaded zip and installer script to root and i am getting this message when i enter domain.com/installer.php
403 Forbidden
Request forbidden by administrative rules.
What next?
There are a few different options you can try, for a starting point, you would want to take a look at our article below:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-the-403-forbidden-error-in-wordpress/
Great article, worked like a charm.
Thank you, glad our article was helpful
I’ve successfully copied across to a new URL and the cloned website seems to be working. However, when I go into wordpress it’s a reduced version with quite a few tabs missing such as: users/plugins/settings to name a few. How can I get a full version of wordpress the same as the site I copied from?
You may want to ensure you are logged in as an admin user on your cloned site as the most likely reason for that issue.
How do you change the name of the website, the url and also the database when installing the cloned site using Duplicator?
To do that, you would want to take a look at our article here:
https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-properly-move-wordpress-to-a-new-domain-without-losing-seo/
Hi, I have a question , can a clone my site without erased the other one , i mean the original website ?
Yes, cloning your site does not remove the original
This is a great post. Just one clarification before I run the import…on STEP 4, these are the instructions:
No matter where you are copying the files, you need to make sure that the folder is completely empty and has no other files or folders inside it except installer.php file and your backup zip file.
If I already have a theme and started building a site before finding this article, do I need to delete everything from the destination? “folder completely empty” refers to which folder?
Thanks!
Todd
If you want to duplicate a site from elsewhere then you would need to remove what is currently there for your site.
Been using this article for years. Thanks so much!
You’re welcome, glad our guide has been so helpful
You were right, I didn’t put in the root folder :/
So I tried again, but in the end, I got an error 404 result.
I’ve fixed the wp_config (name, user, pw & host) and made the changes to the htaccess (copied the NEW .htaccess).
All files are deleted, besides the now unzipped folder which contain all the files. *what about the __MACOSX folder? I tried with and without, but get the same result.
Even after this, in Step 4, I still get the 2 warnings in the General Notices:
wp-config not found
wp-config.php not found.
I found the wp-config.php, but seem like I don’t have the wp-config. Are they the same?
Anything else missing?
Thank you
The macosx you don’t need, the wp-config files should be the same. For moving from the subfolder if the original site is still available you would likely want to go through the steps in: https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-get-rid-of-wordpress-from-your-wordpress-site-url/
I end up on a “Index of” page showing the file in my sub folder. Anyone know why?
Thanks
You likely installed your WordPress site in the subfolder rather than the root folder for your site.
Sorry, forgot to say. If I type in the full path on my web browser, I have a loading time, but end up on a white page.
Thanks
If you are getting that white screen you may want to try the recommendations in our article here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-the-wordpress-white-screen-of-death/
Does anyone know why the Packages option under Duplicator » Packages isn’t showing for me? I only see under Duplicator: Tools, Settings, and Go Pro.
You may want to try reinstalling the plugin and if that doesn’t work you would want to reach out to the plugin’s support and let them know about that not appearing properly
Cloning works well with duplicator but having a clone site online seems not to be liked by jetpack
During my tests Jetpack have put himselt in failure on the original site even if jetpack was not active one the cloned site telling me the original was a copy of the clone
If google find your clone you have also some possible issues
While there is a problem with simply cloning a site without any new content, the primary goal would normally be to use this when transferring your site from one location to another and then removing the old site or using the copied site as a template and adding new content to your new site.
For some inexplicable reason, when I save this useful page to Pocket, what actually arrives there is the old 11 May 2015 version, which discusses a completely different method based on a plugin called BackupBuddy which costs $52 for the 1-site version.
—
Chris
We’ll certainly take a look if it is something on our end. You may want to check with Pocket if there is a cache that needs to be cleared on their end as well
I’ve been in touch with Pocket. They suggest it might be a problem with their Parser, which checks the content and determines the best way to display it. They’ve managed to reproduce the bug and are investigating.
—
Chris
I wand to upgrade my production site to WP 5 and change themes. I thought it might be a good idea to clone my site on my local windows machine under Desktop Server.
I’ve been trying for 2 days to clone my site.
Let me just add that your tuto is perfectly straightforward as long as things go well. It doesn’t go into what might not work correctly.
Firstly Duplicator package creation times out (despite having filtered out the big files). Of course my hosting company doesn’t support Duplicator because it tries to change the time limit, can’t really blame the host company.
I also tried the Duparchive option which doesn’t time out and generates a .daf archive instead of a .zip.
On the Desktop Server local side I tried to run installer.php from my browser but got messages saying I needed to enable ziparchive and/or shell exec. I contacted Desktop Server support about that and have had no answer.
I thought I’d try to extract the data from the daf archive manually but the software that is needed to do this no longer seems to be available.
I imagine that the Duplicator Pro version would work better but I don’t have the budget (association website).
Oh woe is me, looks like I’ll have to do it all by hand.
From the sound of it you sadly may need to manually import/export the data, the other option would be if you have a backup of your site that you could restore to your local installation.
Awesome article!!!
Followed your steps and it worked perfectly.
I did make one error though, I extracted the zip file and uploaded the files in ftp which did create errors. Much easier to simply upload the zip instead.
Thanks heaps!
You would likely need to extract the zip once it is on your hosting provider but glad you found a solution for your error
I copy sites all the time.
The plugins actually look more complicated than doing it manually.
Just download your files, back up your database, ftp to the new server, restore your database to your new database, edit the wp-config file to point to the new database, edit the url in your database to point to the new url.
I also download velvet blue to correct any url problems.
I had a site not pass our security scan that used the plugin. Also, the database back up was stored in the root of your site.
I used a much simpler way. My WP installation is with Godaddy…so logged in the cPanel of the site I wanted to cloned…went to subdomains and created the domain for the site destination…then I went to applications and the top of cPanel and clicked the little check box next the primary site I wanted to clone…then hit the clone button…and voila…and exact copy of our site was created in less than 10 minutes…
Is there any plugin or other software that could clone a wordpress website to another wordpress on the live?
The price for this is riduculous. Even the cheapest option is $80 PER YEAR! What an absolute rippoff!
Better off just going to Control Panel, zipping up your files and download them … then go to PHPMyAdmin and downloading a copy of your database. Then upload your zipped files to the new location…edit the config file, then import the database.
If that’s too hard for website retards … just install the free version of “Duplicate” (similar to Backup Buddy … but FREE).
You’re right man, no need to spend a dime on such a a simple task…
Either of you have a step by step guide? I am trying to copy my site to a subdomain to target a different city from the main site.
The only thing I understand so far is that I have to:
1. create a subdomain
2. create a new database
3. copy the public html folder of the main site over to the subdomain pubic html folder
After that, every tutorial I’ve seen on the internet gets too confusing
What are you talking about? Duplicator is free. I mean, there’s a pro version, but I use the free version all the time to duplicate websites.
The only thing these instructions didn’t add is that you need to first create a new database and add a user to it on the new site before running the installer.
But it’s all easy and free.
thx a lot !!! ;]
Can i copy someone’s site page to my site??
Hi,
I really appreciate all the posts you share with us! Please keep them coming!
My question regarding this post is…
This technique using BackupBuddy works flawlessly.
However, I now have a problem:
When I type in the URL of my original site (where I took the backup), I get directed to the site I cloned from that backup. It’s as if my original site now has a redirect to the cloned site.
What on earth have I broken?
Any advice would be much appreciated!
Thanks,
Allan
Check your DNS record. That would be one of the only ways this would happen.
Thanks! Worked perfect!
Hi,
I would like to know how to clone any wordpress website have no hosting access information as well. I mean, suppose a buyer order your wpbeginner like website. Then, How to do it sir. Do you have any tutorials plz.
not possible anymore to use backup buddy unless you want to pay. Is their a different method?
Duplicator is perfect.
i want to copy the theme of running website to another website…
Hi Sandeep,
Did you get solution to this. I also want to copy a theme to another website(subdomain)
I’ve used another service to clone WordPress sites and have discovered a problem with residual tables, and I was curious whether this was an issue with BackupBuddy as well.
In the scenario I recently encountered, I create WP Site A with table prefix wp1_.
Then I have to create a new environment to clone to, so I install WordPress at WP Site B with table prefix wp2_.
Now I use my [unnamed] tool to clone site A to site B, which appears good on the admin and public side but when I look in the database I have both wp1_ and wp2_ sets of tables, and all of the GUIDs in the functioning tables for the new cloned site have WP Site A’s URL, not WP Site B’s as I would have expected.
These have to be cleaned up manually. So I wonder, does BackupBuddy do the same thing? Is this to be expected?
BackupBuddy’s sales/support team can probably answer this better.
I’d be curious to know how to manually perform this task without a plugin or is a plugin recommended for backing up and migrating over to a new website?
BackupBuddy fails on large WordPress installs. I can’t get it to back up our site which between database all files is over 400GB in size.
I had to manually download all of the files, then re-upload them to the new site and use importbuddy with just the database. Even that fails if the raw database is too large (failed around 200MB in size).
wonderful technique but there is use of another plugin
I recently moved a small simple blog with all-in-one wordpress migration and it worked great. But when I attempted a larger site on wp4.1 it failed. I think I would like back up buddy but the price is staggering. It would be my biggest wordpress expense, almost twice as much as my hosting!
I love using BackupBuddy for backups and migrations.
All you need is access to install the plugin and your set to move.
Great article!
I used to have similar problems too, but after using
“long path tool” You can use to solve this problem.
How about if we want to clone a website that we have no backend access? Is there an easy way?
Do you have ftp access? Do you have access to the database? You would need those two things to backup a website if you don’t have access to wp-admin.