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How to Move a Live WordPress Site to Local Server

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Do you want to move a live WordPress website to a local server on your computer?

Installing WordPress on your computer (local server) allows you to easily learn WordPress and test things. When you move a live WordPress site to a local server, it enables you to experiment with the same data as your live site.

In this article, we’ll show you how to easily move a live WordPress site to a local server without breaking anything.

Moving a live WordPress site to a local server on your computer

Why and Who Would Want to Move a live WordPress Site to Local Server?

If you have been running WordPress website for sometime, you may want to try out new themes or a plugin. However, doing this on a live website may result in poor user experience for your users.

To avoid this, many users create a copy of their WordPress website on a local server to test new themes, plugins, or do development testing.

This allows you to set up your theme with all your content and test all the features without worrying about breaking your site. Many users copy their site to a local server to practice their WordPress and coding skills with actual site data.

Even though you can do all the testing with dummy content in WordPress, real site data gives you a better visual representation of how these changes will appear on your live site.

Preparing to Move a Local Site to Local Server

First, you need to make sure that you always back up your WordPress website. There are several great WordPress backup plugins that you can use.

Secondly, you need to install a local server environment on your computer. You can use WAMP for Windows, and MAMP for Mac. Once you have set up the environment, you need to create a new database using phpMyAdmin.

Simply visit the following URL in your browser to launch phpMyAdmin.

http://localhost/phpmyadmin/
http://localhost:8080/phpmyadmin/

From here you need to click on ‘Databases’ tab and create a new database. You’ll need this database to later to unpack your live site data.

Create database

You are now ready to move your live WordPress site to local server.

Method 1. Moving Live WordPress Site to Local Server using Plugin

This method is easier and recommended for all users.

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.

Duplicator allows you to easily create a duplicate package of your entire website. It can be used to move your WordPress site to a new location, and can also be used as a backup plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin adds a new “Duplicator” menu item in your WordPress admin sidebar. Clicking on it will take you to the packages screen of the plugin.

Creating new package in Duplicator

To create a new package, you need to click on the create new package button. Duplicator will start the package wizard, and you need to click on the Next button to continue.

Duplicator package set up

The plugin will then san your website and run some background checks. It will then show you a summary of those checks. If everything looks good, then click on the ‘Build’ button to continue.

Duplicator scan

Duplicator will now create your website package.

Once finished, you’ll see an archive zip file that contains all your website data, and an installer file. You need to download both files to your computer.

Download package files

You are now ready to unpack and install these files on your local server.

First, you need to create a new folder in your local server’s root folder. This is the folder where your local server stores all websites.

For instance, if you are using MAMP, then it will be /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/ folder. Alternatively if you are using WAMP, then it would be C:\wamp\www\ folder.

Inside this folder, you can make new folders for each new website that you want to import or create on your local server.

Creating a website folder on your local server

After that, you need to open the folder you created for your local website and then copy and paste both the archive zip file and the installer script you downloaded earlier.

Copy and paste Duplicator package and installer files

To run the installation, you need to open the installer.php script in your web browser.

For example if you pasted both files in /mylocalsite/ folder, then you will access them in your browser by visiting http://localhost/mylocalsite/installer.php.

You will now see the Duplicator installation script like this:

Duplicator installer screen

Click on the Next button to continue.

Duplicator will now unpack the archive zip file and will ask you to enter your local site’s database information. This is the database you created earlier.

Duplicator database information

The server name is almost always localhost and username is root. In most cases, your local server installation does not have a password set for root, so you can leave that blank.

At the bottom of the page, you’ll see a ‘Test Database’ button that you can use to make sure your database information is correct.

Test database connection

If everything looks good, then click on the ‘Next’ button to continue.

Duplicator will now import your WordPress database. After that, it will ask you to double-check the new website information that it has automatically detected.

Check local site information

Click on the Next button to continue.

Duplicator will now finish the setup and will show you a button to log into your local site. You’ll use the same WordPress user name and password that you use on your live site.

Import finished

That’s all, you have successfully moved your live site to local server.

Method 2. Manually Move a Live WordPress Site to Local Server

In case the plugin does not work for you, then you can always manually move your live site to a local server. The first thing you would need is to back up your website manually from your WordPress hosting account.

Step 1. Export your live site’s WordPress database

To export your live site’s WordPress database, you need to log into your cPanel dashboard and click on phpMyAdmin.

Note: We’re showing screenshots from Bluehost dashboard.

cPanel phpMyAdmin

Inside phpMyAdmin, you need to select the database you want to export and then click on the export tab on the top.

Export WordPress database manually

phpMyAdmin will now ask you to choose either quick or custom export method. We recommend using custom method and choosing zip as the compression method.

Sometimes WordPress plugins can create their own tables inside your WordPress database. If you are not using that plugin anymore, then the custom method allows you to exclude those tables.

Leave rest of the options as they are and click on the Go button to download your database backup in zip format.

Select export options

PhpMyAdmin will now download your database file. For more details, see our tutorial on how to backup your WordPress database manually.

Step 2. Download all your WordPress files

The next step is to download your WordPress files. To do that you need to connect to your WordPress site using an FTP client.

Once connected, select all your WordPress files and download them to your computer.

Download all your WordPress files

Step 3. Import your WordPress files and database to local server

After downloading your WordPress files, you need to create a folder on your local server where you want to import the local site.

If you are using WAMP then you would want to create a folder inside C:\wamp\www\ folder for your local site. MAMP users would need to create a folder in /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/ folder.

After that, simply copy and paste your WordPress files in the new folder.

Next, you need to import your WordPress database. Simply open the phpMyAdmin on your local server by visiting the following URL:

http://localhost/phpmyadmin/

Since you have already created the database earlier, you now need to select it and then click on the Import tab at the top.

Import WordPress database

Click on the ‘Choose File’ button to select and upload the database export file you downloaded in the first step. After that, click on the ‘Go’ button at the bottom of the page.

PhpMyAdmin will now unzip and import your WordPress database.

Now that your database is all set up, you need to update the URLs inside your WordPress database referencing to your live site.

You can do this by running an SQL query in phpMyAdmin. Make sure you have selected your local site’s database and then click on SQL.

Updating URLs in database

In phpMyAdmin’s SQL screen copy and paste this code, make sure that you replace example.com with your live site’s URL and http://localhost/mylocalsite with the local server URL of your site.

UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, 'https://www.example.com', 'http://localhost/mylocalsite') WHERE option_name = 'home' OR option_name = 'siteurl';
 
UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, 'https://www.example.com', 'http://localhost/mylocalsite');
 
UPDATE wp_postmeta SET meta_value = replace(meta_value,'https://www.example.com','http://localhost/mylocalsite');

This query will replace refences to your live site’s URL from database and replace it with the localhost URL.

Step 4. Update wp-config.php file

The final step is to update your local site’s wp-config.php file. This file contains WordPress settings including how to connect to your WordPress database.

Simply go to the folder where you installed WordPress on your local server and then open wp-config.php file in a text editor like Notepad.

Replace the database name with the one you created in phpMyAdmin on your localhost.

After that, replace the database username with your local MySQL username, usually it is root. If you have set a password for the MySQL user root on your localhost, then enter that password. Otherwise, leave it empty and save your changes.

/** The name of the database for WordPress */
define('DB_NAME', 'database_name_here');

/** MySQL database username */
define('DB_USER', 'username_here');

/** MySQL database password */
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'password_here');

You can now visit your local site in a browser window by entering the URL like this:

http://localhost/mylocalsite/

Replace ‘mylocalsite’ with the name of the folder where you copied your WordPress files.

That’s all, your live WordPress site is now copied to your local server.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily move a live WordPress site to local server. You may also want to see our guide on how to easily make a staging site for WordPress for testing, or how to move a WordPress site from local server to live site.

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Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

257 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
    Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
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  2. Reese says

    Hello,

    I am receiving an error when reaching this step:

    “Now that your database is all set up, you need to update the URLs inside your WordPress database referencing to your live site. You can do this by running an SQL query in phpMyAdmin. Make sure you have selected your local site’s database and then click on SQL. In phpMyAdmin’s SQL screen copy and paste this code, make sure that you replace example.com with your live site’s URL and localhost/test-site with the local server URL of your site. ”

    The error is:
    #1146 – Table ‘rpd.wp_options’ doesn’t exist

    Please advise, thank you!

  3. Martin says

    Thanks for all of your hard work. I’m a beginning web developer and your site is incredibly helpful.

    I have looked at both of your articles about migrating from local to live and vice versa. I built a WordPress site locally and used it to replace an existing HTML site. I then made changes to the live site, and I’m not quite sure how to go about “syncing” them again. What would you suggest?

  4. James says

    Thank you for the article, however i have still been having problems.

    One thing i don’t understand, is that you start of by recommending using backupbuddy (which i have been using to backup my sites) but then suddenly say to use this duplicator plugin.

    I have my full backup (with db) zip of my wordpress site which i created with backupbuddy and have unzipped it into its own folder in the “www” folder in wamp.

    I successfully create a new DB in PhpMyAdmin and then successfully imported my website db into it. I have also changed the config.php db name and password.

    However on the next step, trying to change the urls it comes back with:

    #1146 – Table ‘zexico.wp_options’ doesn’t exist
    #1146 – Table ‘zexico.wp_posts’ doesn’t exist
    #1146 – Table ‘zexico.wp_postmeta’ doesn’t exist

    What have i done wrong?
    thank you

  5. Nina Chang says

    Following on from my earlier comment – I fixed the problem! For some reason the duplicator plugin wasn’t copying across all of my database tables, which was causing the first round of issues – I sorted that by switching to the manual method. Then when I was running the queries in mysql I didn’t realise at first that I had to amend the names of the database tables as well (i.e. was just pasting wp_options when I needed to adapt that) – I’m not sure if this is normal as your lines of code only highlight the urls as needing to be corrected? THEN I had to deal with my strange wp-config.php file that had all the ‘database’, ‘host’, ‘username’ fields already filled in – after trying both options it only worked when I deleted the data that wordpress had already filled in and replaced it with the localhost data as directed. I don’t understand why my wp-config file had its fields already populated but then I’m a complete newbie to all this so I’m bound to have missed/misunderstood lots. Anyway – thanks again for the tutorial as it did FINALLY get me there!

  6. Nina Chang says

    Hi there,

    Thanks for the tutorial. I’ve attempted to migrate my site with duplicator and it seems to work except I then can’t log-in to my locally hosted site – it doesn’t recognise my username at all. After the duplicator installed my files I had two config.php files – one config-sample.php and one config.php, and also two htaccess files – one .htaccess and one ORIG – could these doubled-up files have something to do with my login issues? I’ve tried every variation of deleting one of each pair, and I’ve also tried replacing my wp-login file and deleting plugins as I read elsewhere this might help, but nothing has worked. I redid the entire process from packaging and still no luck! I’ve also tried manually but got stuck at the mysql query updates. Do you have any idea where I’ve gone wrong??

    Many thanks!
    Nina

  7. Susan Taunton says

    I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this info. I have put an unbelievable amount of time into trying to get a live site onto my local server to no avail — and then I found your post today. Used the Duplicator and it WORKED!

    THANK YOU!!!!!!!!! :-))

  8. Dilip Pradhan says

    I have copied website from hosting domain to local host. everything is fine but all links of menu and all are redirected to
    how to solve it

    • Byron Allen says

      hi ,

      I had the same problem and just found the solution. I’m sure you’ve solved it by now but this might help others down the track.

      in WordPress admin area go to settings-> permalinks. Choose Post name.
      Your problems should be solved.

  9. John Payne says

    Thanks for all the excellent advice you give- it’s a wonderful service to the WordPress community.

    I’ve begun using the All-in-1 WP Migration plugin to easily backup my site , and later migrate it if necessary.

    It would also be good to be able to make changes to the sites on my own computer, checking them out before uploading updated files.

    I’, installing XAMPP on my computer. Is there an easy way I can use my All-in-1 WP Migration backup files with this?

    Any advice will be much appreciated.

  10. Andres says

    Great tutorial. Its important to mention that you need to delete the HTACCESS File in order to this to work.

    Thanks

      • Siddhartha says

        Yes from the local site folder. I did that, and my site started working. However there are many other problems that I am facing even now. Like my category links are not working at all.

  11. Gokiko says

    Hi WPbeginner,

    I have followed all the instructions for manual moving. But I’m getting a “Oops! That page can’t be found.” error on the mainpage, none of the content can be viewed. And all the links in my localhost site direct to my online website.

    It seems only the the main structure of my site(theme, menus etc.) has been moved but all the rest is lost.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Is this error shown with your WordPress theme or on a blank white page? If it is shown on a blank white page, then this probably means that your WordPress site is not installed on the URL you are trying.

      Admin

      • Gokiko says

        It shows on my WordPress theme. It also shows all my menus and content categories. But all the links take to the original websites address. Here is a screenshot if it’s gonna help:

        • Juan says

          I have the exact same issue, but I can not log-in into my localhost using wp-admin or wp-login as it takes me to the live-site domain.

          Is there another way to login to my localhost/dev-site area to make this change? thanks in advance!

  12. Jason Hess says

    Dear WPBeginner,
    First of all, Thank you for all you do in the WP community, my question is hopefully a pretty simple one. (Famous last words huh?) Currently I use CLEF to log in to my “Live Site”. When I move my Live site to my Local server, will this create any issues when attempting to log in to the local site once the move has been completed? Or do I need to create a new log in PW for my site via the Dashboard in my Live site before making the move to a Local environment or will CLEF still continue to work on my “Local Server”?
    Also, do you all have any thoughts on using CLEF to log in? I’ve been using WP on and off for about 2 years and just want to get your opinion on CLEF.
    Thank you very much in advance! You guys rock! After I get my site up and running you can bet I’ll promote your site to everyone I know. I’ve learned so much already from your site and I’ve only been a member for 2 almost 3 months now.

    Have a great Day,
    Jason Hess

  13. Mohd Amir says

    I forgot the password of filezilla, so I couldn’t download all the file of live site. I have backup of live site wp_content only. What can I do now for local server.

  14. maarja says

    Hi,

    Thank You for Your helpful directions.After a long while, I finally got the live page to my localhost with the plugin BUT for some reason, the content pages are not found on the server-all the information, texts etc is there in the back-office but aren’t shown in the front office except for the front page.
    Do You have any idea where/why the problem might occur?

    Thank You in advance,
    Maarja

  15. Yellow Canary says

    Thank you very much :) I have done it manually… from a live server to localhost. With your instructions I have managed this for the first time. And I even know now how to do a SQL query in phpMyAdmin. I feel like a real pro!

  16. amna says

    Hi,

    i followed all the steps but i am getting internal server error .

    I am confused in one step , after downloading the live site through filezill from godaddy host. i replace the wordpress folder with my live site folder i.e.

    C:/users/amna/wamp/www/wordpress/old folders

    with C:/users/amna/wamp/www/wordpress/mywebsite new folders

    please help i am a beginner

  17. Debenkumar Naorem says

    Hi WEBBIGINNER SUPPORT, I followed the instruction for manual, it works very fine. Thanks for such intructions, I’ve been looking for this. Thanks again.

  18. Manish says

    Hey! Thanks for the post.

    I followed manual instruction and replaced my site URL with localhost/name of blog . The problem I am facing is, no images are being loaded in my blog. All the uploaded images are there in upload folder. The text is absolutely fine. The images url have changed to localhost but they are not showing up.

    Could you please help me out in this?

  19. deepthi says

    hi, i followed the manual procedure to check my wordpress website in localhost using xampp, i hav changed the site URL, home and the wp-posts and wp-postmeta. the problem is my home page loading fine in localhost. but when i go the pages in the menu the following error is coming.
    Object not found!

    The requested URL was not found on this server. The link on the referring page seems to be wrong or outdated. Please inform the author of that page about the error.

    If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.

    Error 404

    localhost
    Apache/2.4.10 (Win32) OpenSSL/1.0.1i PHP/5.5.15

    i logged into dashboard and can see all of the page content in the editing section, but from there also, when i try to view the page its reporting the same error.
    the url path it is taking is my updatedURL only,
    please reply with the solution

      • Joshua S. says

        Can I hug you? Can I love you forever?
        I was having the same issue. I did everything correct, except the homepage would load , but all the other page links seemed to be broken (it just displayed an unstyled layout of my localhost information).

        But going into Settings>Permalinks>Save Changes reset my links and now I can access my different pages, even the new pages that I create since moving my site to the local host.

        LIKE!

  20. Peter says

    After following the instructions to manually move the site, the home page displayed fine on localhost but none of the links worked. The page below said to “Go to settings/permalinks in the wordpress dashboard and update permalinks by clicking twice on save changes.” That fixed it.

    • Mohd Hasan says

      I followed your steps , but only home page works fine and none of the links are working . Give The requested URL /akhdir3/category/health/ was not found on this server.

  21. Anes P A says

    Dear Author,

    I tried your step. But problem is when loading a page the localhost refer online site and the Menu links point to the online web site. How it can solve ?

    Please advise.

    Thanks

    Anes

  22. Bhavana says

    I have manually done all the above mentioned steps . But I am not getting the actual site which I want.There comes all uninstalled plugins in admin panel and the theme is also uncustomized. Where I am going wrong?

  23. Justin says

    I’m trying to follow your instructions for a manual move.

    When trying to find/replace the live site’s address with my local host, SQL tells me there’s a syntax error.

    #1064 – You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near ‘)’ at line 1

    Are you sure the code is correct?

    • Justin says

      Fixed my own problem….sort of.

      For some reason all my tables begin with wplm instead of just wp (wp_options = wplm_options for example). So updating the code to look for the correct table name allowed the script to run without errors.

      But….SQL reports “# MySQL returned an empty result set (i.e. zero rows)” and the values in the table didn’t get updated. I had to go in and update the links by hand. In my case this was only 2 values in wplm_options, but I could imagine some people will have a lot more links to check.

      Still, I do have my site imported now, and dealing with local hosting is a notoriously confusing process.
      Thanks for the clear and simple instructions!

  24. Lloyd says

    The instructions for Duplicaor Installer begin with this line:
    “Your local server site will need a new database, so you need to create a database on your local server using phpMyAdmin.”
    Is creating a new database something simple like clicking a menu option, or is it so complex that it would require an extensive tutorial to explain?
    When I explore phpMyAdmin on Xampp, the only thing I see that looks like a possibility is under the Databases tab where it says:
    “Create database:
    (X) No Privileges”
    Is there an authorization problem, and if so where do I go to change that parameter?
    I have two web sites on this local host that seem to function properly, so I have assumed that the local host is set up correctly.

    Thanks for any help or suggestions,
    Lloyd

  25. Ashvani Kumar says

    I am following the Manual option but when i go to Import Database page in phpMyAdmin then the max size for database upload is (Max: 2,048KiB) but my database backup size is 710MB. How do i increase this limit so that i can upload the database?

    Thanks

  26. Judy Williams says

    I am trying this using Duplicator. I have downloaded my site and the installer. I have created a database using phpMyAdmin and have got to the bit ‘you need to copy and paste the package and install file to an empty folder in your local server’s web directory’. I have no idea how to do this! I have Filezilla and XAMPP installed on my laptop. Is there a tutorial on how to create an empty folder in my local server’s web directory? I am stuck now. Thanks

  27. german says

    I’ve copied the files and database, when i try to access my localhost/test-site i get redirected to the dashboard. Any ideas why this could be happening?

  28. miguel says

    thank you for the clear tutorial.
    although i’ve done the opposite (from localhost to public server) i thought the reverse would be equally simple.
    however, when it comes to connecting the database, i’m stumped. i’ve gone over the settings over and over without being able to connect.
    i even got into some trouble and got locked out of the database but fortunately got that resolved.
    in my config.php file i’ve changed the user to “root”, then set it to empty, used the user name from the public server and the same with the password. i have set the db name correctly to the localhost name.
    i can’t guess what i need to do.
    if you could give me a direction to look next, i’ll appreciate it greatly.
    thank you for you labor of love. it’s great to see so many people with the knowledge helping us those who look for answers.

  29. Daniel says

    Hi

    I want to do this as well. Is this post written a few years back , still the approach to use or are the other plugins or post I should be looking at .

    Daniel

  30. Beatrix K. says

    Hi everyone,

    Just wondering (please bare with me as I am new at this) – if I need to have have my local site to work with on two different devices, say my desktop and my laptop, is there a way for the changes I make on one device to be updated on the other device? I just want to know if it is possible to work from two different devices on the same project and not have to redo all of my changes. Thanks in advance for any insight :)

    B

  31. Muniba says

    I am confused in step related to Filezeila ,,, how i will download my wordpress site using Filezeila..??

    • german says

      download filezilla, establish a connection to your current host, productions site using filezilla. Once you have a connection you will be able to download the files to a local directory on your computer

      • Dee says

        So with CPanel, for instance, we’d use the IP associated, our CPanel user and pass, along with “21” as the port value? After establishing a connection with Cpanel host, how can I transfer the files to my localhost while keeping the live site as well? Essentially, how do I create a duplicate with having the same site at both hosts (one to experiment with and one that remains live)?

      • Dee says

        After successfully transferring files from remote to local, what is an easy way to bulk copy&paste (instead of manually one-by-one) the files to the local server where we want to install WordPress? I tried selecting all files to copy, but there is no copy function available. Please Help

  32. assal0le says

    I want to copy my live wordpress site to my local wamp server, note moving it. My question is this will remove my live wordpress site if I follow this tutorial using duplicator plugin?

    Thx

  33. Ognatius Chironga says

    I thank you so much!
    I found this article helpful.

    I almost restarted creating my site.

  34. Quy P says

    I have tested and tried a number of time. It does not work untill i delete the .htaccess file on local. Thank you.

  35. Tobias says

    If you are running a network of sites you should also update the column domain URL’s in the table wp_blogs.

  36. lorenzo says

    Thank for this useful tutorial. I have to move manually my wp site, but if I type in the browser “http://localhost/phpmyadmin/” it doesn’t appear myphpadmin. Maybe I have to install it? How?
    Thank you very much…

  37. Dave says

    In the wp-config.php file I also have to change the /**MySQL hostname */

    /** MySQL hostname */
    define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘localhost’);

    set if for localhost

  38. nicola says

    Hi,
    i follow your step but the admin login is not visible…. error 404 not found. all the site is good in my local installation. how can i solve my problem?

  39. abdelouahad says

    i did all the steps but i have always the error page i don’t know why some one can help me please

  40. Shilling says

    Double checked all the steps and it all seems good, but I’m getting this error message when I go to the site on my local URL:

    Google Chrome’s connection attempt to localhost was rejected. The website may be down, or your network may not be properly configured.

    I don’t think the site is down. My local URL is auto flipping to http://localhost/wordpress-folder-name
    when I think it should go to http://localhost:888/wordpress-folder-name

    I’m hoping this is an obvious clue. I’m new at this and just have no idea.

    Any insight would be much appreciated.

  41. Ebert says

    This was the clearest tutorial I found which helped me to copy a site I started with iPage to my laptop under localhost. The database was not imported but created a new local copy of the server database. I copied the data tables into my new database and modified the sql commands to match the table names and everything ran smoothly.
    I had to reuse the password I used on the live site with the local wordpress copy and I can now access and modify what I need to.
    Thanks and you just got another new subscriber to this great site. :)

    Also the post about BackWPup was very helpful as well. I tried to use Duplicator and it kept giving me error messages about permissions to create a backup folder on my machine. I used BackWPup and everything ran without a hitch. Thanks again!! :)

  42. Alessio says

    Hi guys,
    I’m trying to config the localhost on my computer with linux mint.
    i’ve already set up a new database, transferred the files with FTP to my local wordpress folder.
    Now I imported the db, but when I give the query to change the webaddress with a local address, it will give me a message “# MySQL returned an empty result set (i.e. zero rows)”.
    Now, if I type in the browser “localhost”, it will lead me to the online website…
    what should I do?
    thank you!

    • idriss says

      Hey Allesio,

      Did you manage to solve this?

      I have the same issue. How did you manage to solve it?

      Thanks

      • Justin says

        Same problem here.
        SQL is having trouble replacing the live site URL with the local host address.

        Without the updates to the database, WP tries to connect to the live site instead of the local site.

        Did either of you have any luck fixing this?

        • Sam says

          Go to your localhost phpmyadmin and the database you are using for the site. Click wp_options and edit the siteurl and home. Replace the live url with the: localhost/ your-folder-name-goes-here

          That should do it.

          Sam

  43. Mike says

    The first step worked with me.
    But how can I enter to localhost/test-site/wp-admin? It gives me an error message:

    Internal Server Error

  44. Wenke Adam says

    Updating the local site’s wp-config.php file might not be the last step in this procedure. I followed your instructions and after some trials the public site was working (first I had a typo in the SQL queries and nothing happened) but still I couldn’t access wp-admin.

    The solution was to edit the wp_options table in the database. The first row had the wrong URL. I fixed this and finally everything was working fine, even the permalinks.

    Thanks for all these very nice and clear tutorials!

  45. Tim says

    I am reposting this because it seems to have disappeared (at least on my end). So I am sorry if it is a double post.

    I am getting an error message when uploading the database. Any ideas?

    Thanks

  46. Tim says

    When I try to upload the database I get a Red Error Screen. I can send a screenshot of the error if you would like.

    Thanks

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Sure, you can upload the screenshot to a cloud hosting service like dropbox and paste the link as a reply to this comment. We will then take a look and will try to help.

      Admin

  47. Ian Hyndman says

    All day I have been trying to do this change with no effect !
    I even had to install word press again on my testing server. Was about to give up then I came across this. My other option was to manually copy and paste and install all the same plugins active on my host server to my testing server.
    When i read your post i finished in 5 minutes :):)

    Thank you for your tutorial, its just what I needed. !
    Well Done ;)

  48. Alexandros says

    Two days i am trying to do this change alone with no effect !
    When i read your post i finished in 5 minutes :):)

    Thank you for everything !
    Keep up the great work ;)

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