One way to speed up your website development is to build your website locally on your own computer using a software like WAMP (for Windows) or MAMP (for Mac).
Once you’re finished perfecting your website, the next step is to move it from your computer to a live site and share your creation with the world. In this article, we will show you how to easily move WordPress from local server to a live site.
We will cover two different methods to move WordPress from local server to your live website (step by step).
The first method uses a WordPress migration plugin and is recommended for beginners. In the second method, we will show you how to manually move WordPress from local server to a live site.
You can choose the method that best suits you:
- Method 1. Move WordPress from local server to live site using a plugin
- Method 2. Manually move WordPress from local server to live site
Before You Begin
In order for you to migrate WordPress from localhost to live server, you need to have a few things in place.
First, we’re assuming that you have a WordPress site running on local server (also called localhost) on your computer, and you have full access to it.
Next, you’ll need to have a domain name and web hosting. We have a list of the best WordPress hosting companies that you can choose from.
To speed it up, you can use Bluehost. They’re an official WordPress recommended hosting provider, and they are offering our users an exclusive 60% off discount + a free domain.
If you need help setting up your website, follow our step by step guide on how to make a website.
Finally, you will need to have a FTP program and know how to use FTP, so you can upload your content to the live site.
Ready? Let’s begin migrating your WordPress site.
Method 1. Transfer WordPress from Local Server to Live Site Using a Migration Plugin
This method is easier and recommended for beginners. We’ll be using a WordPress migration plugin to move WordPress from localhost to a live site.
Step 1. Install and Setup Duplicator Plugin
First, thing you need to do is install and activate the Duplicator plugin on your local site. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you need to go to Duplicator » Packages page and click on the ‘Create New’ button.
After that, click on the next button to continue.
Duplicator will now run some tests to see if everything is in order. If all items are marked ‘Good’ then click on the ‘Build’ button.
This process may take a few minutes depending on the size of your website. You need to leave this tab open until the process is complete.
Once finished, you’ll see download options for Installer and the Archive package. You need to click on the ‘One click download’ link to download both files to your computer.
So what are these files?
Well, the archive file is a copy of your complete WordPress website. It includes all WordPress core files as well as your images, uploads, themes, plugins, and a backup of your WordPress database.
The installer file is a script that will automate the migration by unpacking the archive file.
Step 2. Create a Database for Your Live Site
Before you can run the installer or upload the WordPress website from localhost to your hosting server, you will need to create a MySQL database for your live website.
If you have already created a MySQL database, then you can skip this step.
To create a database you need to visit your hosting account’s cPanel dashboard. Scroll down to the Databases section and then click on the MySQL Databases icon.
On the next screen, you’ll see a field to create a new database. Simply provide a name for your database and click on the ‘Create Database’ button.
cPanel will now create a new database for you. After that, you need to scroll down to the MySQL Users section.
Next, provide a username and password for your new user and click on the ‘Create a user’ button.
The new user you just created, still does not have permission to work on the database. Let’s change that.
Scroll down to the ‘Add User to Database’ section. Simply select the database user you created from the dropdown menu next to the ‘User’ field, then select the database, and click on the add button.
Your database is now ready to be used with your WordPress site. Make sure to note down the database name, username, and password. You’ll need this information in the next step.
Step 3. Upload Files from Local Server to Live Site
Now you need to upload the archive and installer files from your local site to your hosting account.
First, connect to your live site using an FTP client. Once connected, make sure that the root directory of your website is completely empty.
Normally, root directory is the /home/public_html/ folder.
Some WordPress hosting companies automatically install WordPress when you sign up. If you have WordPress files there, then you need to delete them.
After that, you can upload the archive and installer files from Duplicator to your empty root directory.
Step 4. Runing The Migration Script
After you have uploaded the migration files, you need to visit the following URL in your browser:
http://example.com/installer.php
Don’t forget to replace example.com with your own domain name.
This will launch the Duplicator migration wizard.
The installer will automatically scan for the archive file and run a validation test. You need to check the terms & conditions checkbox and continue by clicking on the Next button.
On the next screen, it will ask you to enter your WordPress database information.
Your host will likely be localhost. After that, you will enter the details of the database you created in the earlier step.
Click on the next button to continue.
Duplicator will now import your WordPress database backup from the archive into your new database.
Next, it will ask you to update site URL or Path. You shouldn’t have to change anything since it automatically detects the URL of your live website, and its path.
Click on the next button to continue.
Duplicator will now finish the migration and will show you a success screen. You can now click on the ‘Admin Login’ button to enter the WordPress admin area of your live site.
Once you login to your live site, Duplicator will automatically clean up the installation files.
That’s all, you have successfully moved WordPress from local server to your live site.
Method 2. Manually Transfer WordPress from Local Server to Live Site
In this method, we will show you how to manually move WordPress from local server to your live site. It will come in handy if the first method doesn’t work or you prefer to do it manually.
Step 1: Export Local WordPress Database
The first thing you need to do is export your local WordPress database. We’ll be using phpMyAdmin to do that. If you are unfamiliar with it, then you might want to take a look at our guide to WordPress database management using phpMyAdmin.
Simply go to http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ and click on your WordPress database. Next, click on the Export button from the top menu bar.
In the Export Method option, you can choose “Quick” or “Custom”. Custom will provide you with more options to export your database.
We recommend choosing Quick, and then click the Go button to download your database.
Step 2: Upload WordPress Files to Live Site
Now we’ll need to move all your website files to the live site.
To get started, go ahead and open your FTP client and connect to your web hosting account.
Once you’re connected to your live site, make sure you upload the files in the right directory. For example, if you want the site to be hosted on yoursite.com, then you would want to upload all the files in your public_html directory.
Now select your local WordPress files and upload them to your live server.
Step 3: Create MySQL Database on Live Site
While your FTP client is uploading your WordPress files, you can start importing your database to the live server. Most WordPress hosting providers offer cPanel to manage your hosting account, so we’ll show you how to create a database using cPanel.
First, you need to log in to your cPanel dashboard and click on the MySQL Databases icon which can be found in the databases section.
On the next screen, create a database by entering a name for your database and clicking the Create Database button.
After creating your database, scroll down to the MySQL Users section and create or add an existing user to the database.
After adding the user, cPanel will take you to set MySQL privileges for that user. Simply grant all privileges to the user by making sure every box is checked, and then click the Make Changes button.
Step 4: Import WordPress Database on Live Site
The next step in the process is to import your WordPress database.
Go to your cPanel dashboard, scroll down to the databases section and click on phpMyAdmin.
This will take you to phpMyAdmin where you want to click on the database you created in Step 3. PhpMyAdmin will show your new database with no tables.
Click on the Import tab in the top menu. On the import page, click on Choose File button and then select the database file you saved in Step 1.
Lastly, press the Go button at the bottom of the page. PhpMyadmin will now import your WordPress database.
Step 5: Change the Site URL
Now you need to change the site URL in your database, so that it will connect with your live WordPress site.
In phpMyAdmin, look for the wp_options table in your database that we just imported in step 4. If you changed your database prefix, then instead of wp_options it might be {prefix}_options.
Click on the Browse button next to wp_options or the link that you see in the sidebar to open the page with a list of fields within the wp_options table. See screenshot below:
Under the field options_name, you need to look for siteurl. Click the Edit Field icon which can be found at the far left at the beginning of the row.
When you click the edit field, an edit field window will appear. In the input box for option_value, you will see the URL of your local install probably something like: http://localhost/test. Carefully insert your new site url in this field, for example: https://www.wpbeginner.com
Save the field by clicking the Go button.
Next, you need to replicate this step for the option name: home. The wp_options page can be a few pages long, so simply find the home tab.
Usually it is on the second page which you can navigate to by clicking on the pagination arrows in phpMyAdmin.
Update the home url to be the same as your siteurl.
Step 6: Setup Your Live Site
Now that we have imported the database and all of our content should be uploaded, it’s time to configure WordPress.
At this time, your site should be showing an Error Establishing Database Connection error.
To fix this, connect to your website using an FTP client and edit wp-config.php file.
You will need to provide the database name, user and password you created earlier in Step 3.
Next, save the wp-config.php file and upload it back to your server.
You can now visit your website, and it should be live now.
Next, you need to login to your WordPress admin panel and go to Settings » General. Without changing anything, scroll to the bottom and click the Save Changes button.
This will ensure that the site URL is corrected anywhere else that it needs to be.
After that go to Settings » Permalink and click Save Changes to ensure that all post links are working fine.
Step 7: Fix Images and Broken Links by Updating Paths
Whenever you are moving a WordPress site from one domain to another, or from local server to a live site, you’ll face broken links and missing images.
You can either use the SQL query or use the Velvet Blues WordPress plugin.
For those who want to do it via SQL, here is a simple SQL query that should solve this problem:
UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = REPLACE(post_content, 'localhost/test/', 'www.yourlivesite.com/');
Simply go to phpMyAdmin, click on your database and then click on SQL from top menu. Write this query, but don’t forget to change it with your own local site and live site URLs.
That’s all, you have successfully migrated WordPress from localserver to a live site!
Hopefully now your live website is up and running smoothly. Be sure to check out your website to make sure that everything is working as expected. If you notice any errors, you can check out our guide to common WordPress errors for help troubleshooting.
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Thanks for the tutorial. I followed the manual method and the only issue I had was an internal server error on anything but the front page.
This was because on my development server my WordPress was installed at localhost/SAF, so the Rewrite Base and Rewrite Rule in the .htaccess file had to be updated to remove the SAF/. Might be worth updating the instructions to check for this, based on the comments it looks like a couple of others have had a similar issue.
We’ll certainly look at updating the article to include this information
I don’t know if i’ve missed something here but i don’t understand the jump in step 3. You’ve said
‘Now you need to upload the archive and installer files from your local site to your hosting account.
First, connect to your live site using an FTP client. Once connected, make sure that the root directory of your website is completely empty.’
How can I connect an FTP to a live site if it isn’t live yet. I have a c panel which has a database made for my site, a copy of my localhost site on my desktop and a filezilla. Am I connecting filezilla to my hosting account? how do I do that? Some clarity on this would be appreciated
Apologies for the confusion, the methods involved in connecting to your host with FTP can vary depending on the host. If you reach out to your hosting provider they should be able to let you know how to connect filezilla to your root folder
Perfect! Thanks a lot, very useful. Worked perfectly.
You’re welcome, glad our article could help
I’m trying to host the WordPress them that I made from scratch. I followed the instructions in this article except for step 7. Now I’m getting the “Stylesheet is missing” error. Help?
For a custom theme, you would want to make sure you have a style.css file in the main folder of the theme and ensure that your computer didn’t rename it style.css.txt
I have a very important question as I never see any specific information about JavaScript in using these methods to upload your site to wordpress. My question is this; if I have javascript files and CSS included in my website files for displaying numbers and text, will they still function properly after I upload my website using this method? I need my javascript files. Please help as this is important to me. I want to use this method after I finish my website but Idk if the javascript files included will work as they should. Thanks in advance.
Unless the file was hardcoded to use a file on your local computer then Javascript files should still work the same as some themes use Javascript files and they don’t have any issues.
Thank you, I will try once my site is complete. I appreciate the help.
Glad we could help
Very helpful, thanks a lot for your blog
You’re welcome, glad our articles can help
Great tutorial – thank you so much! Got my site up and running (using your manual method) without just a couple small hiccups that were easily solved with a Google search. Overall, I’m very pleased!
Thank you, glad our guide could help
please i found out that after everything,in the menus and submenus have localhost links like (localhost/test/category instead of http://www.yoursite/category
is there any solutions?
Did you follow the steps in step 7? You could also recreate the menu links if you wanted.
please how i can find my back-ends after i have transferred the site to live server
For finding your login url, you would want to take a look at our article here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-find-your-wordpress-login-url/
what should i do if the database you are importing is larger than the required amount given?
You can increase your max upload limit using the method in the article below or reach out to your hosting provider and they should be able to assist.
https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-increase-the-maximum-file-upload-size-in-wordpress/
I have solved the issue.thanks for your kindest answering back
You’re welcome
Thanks a lot for the instructiuons. I had the internal error problem. Luckily I had the htacces file from a previous installation on the server and could just replace the other one.
Everything running perfectly now.
Thanks for sharing the error you ran into, glad our tutorial could be helpful
Awesome work. You helped me so much. I used 2nd method because I prefer manual handling. Works fine.
Glad our guide could help
Thanks a lot for your help. ALTHOUGH…
After a lot of effort, I understood the chaos of 2 domains on the job I’ve been given, so now website finally is live. But I cannot complete your tutorial because whatever I click or whatever else I type as URL besides just domain, it gives me error 500… I’ve tried all possible solutions mentioned in your other article, but nothing worked. Would you know the reason of the problem?
It’s my school’s website. It’s in Serbian, but click on any link and you will see the error in English.
Thank you again for this tutorial, it helped me A LOT.
There are a few possible reasons and solutions for the 500 error, you would want to take a look at our article here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-the-internal-server-error-in-wordpress/
Hi I’m having an issue when I try running installer.php I get a 403 Error message. Any ideas what is happenning?
For that error and how to solve it, you would want to take a look at our article here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-the-403-forbidden-error-in-wordpress/
Everything went correctly, but i ma not able to login to dashboard of my new copied website
It would depend on if you’re running into an error or not, for a starting point you would want to take a look at our troubleshooting article here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/beginners-guide-to-troubleshooting-wordpress-errors-step-by-step/
Hi,
Everything was going smoothly. I was on step 4and uploaded my site. It gave me an “Error Establishing A Database Connection”. I realised my dtabase name was slightly diifferent from the one on my site. I went into phpmyadmin on WAMP and created a new database with the correct name and copied the old database data on the new database. Now the wordpress site on my PC says ” We were able to connect to the database server (which means your username and password is okay) but not able to select the xxxxxx database.
I restarted my PC and my WP site is blank. Is there anyway I can salvage this? I still have access to WAMP.
Regards
Eddie
It could likely be due to how the content was copied, you would want to edit your wp-config file to point to the correct database for your content to be on your site again.
Thanks it worked very well
Glad our article could help
Things were going smoothly moving form local host to my domain until Step 1 of 4: Deployment
You are migrating site from the PHP 7.2.11 to the PHP 5.6.38.
If this servers PHP version is different to the PHP version of your package was created it might cause problems with proper functioning of your website and/or plugins and themes.
Note: This warning will still show if you choose option #2 and open_basedir is enabled, but should allow the installer to run properly. Please work with your hosting provider or server administrator to set this up correctly.
Wrote to host but wonder if I can ignore this and just go?
We would recommend reaching out to your hosting provider as some of your plugins/themes may require the newer php and your host should have the ability to help you update the PHP being used for the server.
Some days ago I posted I had used method #1 successfully. I am now trying again, from scratch, with no success.
I have two webs in one host (two subdomains: www and blog). one seats in /public/ and the other seats in /public_blog/.
(so, not a subfolder but a sibling, in my host provider). Both (www and blog subdomains) have a SSL.
I got to enter the WP admin area, clean the remaining files; posts and pages are listed, but clicking preview shows a blank page. No errors on the log
I don’t know how to trace and find out the steps (although I have the dup-installer-log.txt
thanks
You would likely want to reach out to your hosting provider to ensure that the subdomain is set to the correct folder location for the most common reason for that issue.
Brilliant tutorial.
I went with option 1. Got write through to point 4, but then on trying to launch WordPress, I received a “too many redirects”. Spent ages trying to figure out what I had done wrong, trying all the suggested for the error type and turned out not to be my fault. It wasn’t working because the database version I was using on Wamp was newer than the version on my hosting company 1and1 ionos.
I called up 1and 1 CS’s to ask if they could update the database version and it appears they must have had other complaints. 2 days later, database version updated and my local website transferred to the live site within minutes.
So…… database versions is another thing to consider if you get problems.
Thanks for such an excellent tutorial, I will use this method again in the future.
Thanks for sharing your solution should anyone else run into this issue
Perfect. I used method #1. Now the site (in server) is up and running.
But, then, when I add some posts, pages, menus in localhost,… how can I update the real site, without starting from scratch again?
thanks
You could use the duplicator method to move the updated content over to your current site
Thanks. I will try.
I didn’t notice my post was published yesterday, so I just wrote a new one asking the same question.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
No worries
My website working fine on localhost but when i upload it to my live domain some of the Social button images are not showing can you help please ?
We would first recommend reaching out to the support for the plugin you are using to ensure there isn’t a hiccup that is specific to transferring the content.
Hi! I followed every step but once I get to step 4 and click on Admin Login I get an error saying “Too many redirects occurred trying to open […]. This might occur if you open a page that is redirected to open another page which then is redirected to open the original page”.
How can I fix that?
For that error you would want to try the troubleshooting steps in our article here: https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-fix-error-too-many-redirects-issue-in-wordpress/
Hi, I’ve followed the instructions so far, and everything seems to go as it has, but the problem begins on step 4.
I’ve uploaded the migration files, after check the file is 1.2 gig.
After launching the installer.php the message is : file is 4k, please upload the complete file.
I am sure that the uploaded file is completely uploaded.
The process stops here, what can I do?
You would want to reach out to duplicator’s support and let them know the error and they will be able to assist.
Thankyou for this fantastic tutorial! I am building a new website locally but I already have a live site running that I will want to completely overwrite with the new one. Do I need to delete my whole live website before migrating? Both are running WordPress but are completely different themes… thanks!
It would normally be best to remove the site you are replacing so you do not have unnecessary additional files on your server.
In my opinion I recommend you guys to please organize a complete video tutorial, it gonna be a great practical guide and more helpful and much easier, for it may allow to view in real doing until results achieve.. Thanks you guys for good job you are offering.
Thank you for your recommendation
Hi, I did this and now my slider/carousel does not work live but it shows and works on localhost. What can I do to fix this? Thank you.
It would depend on what error you are running into at the moment. If you reach out to the slider plugin’s support they should be able to assist.
Hi I really appreciate the in depth explanation. I am completely finished with step 5, changed my URL and Home to my actual URL i am using, but now when I type in my URL it still gives me the “if you are the owner login to launch site”. Not sure what I’m missing but i dont get an error message.
Hi Gage,
Please recheck if you uploaded WordPress files to the correct directory. If you are unsure, then ask your hosting provider and they will let you know which directory you should upload it to.
Thank. Very useful tutorial.
Thank you
Thanks for sharing the post, i will surely try.
Glad our post can help you
I normally love your tutorials and have built my two personal websites with your help and guidance… But this is too complicated for me!
When I run Duplicator If doesn’t list all the entries as ‘good’. The size check and add on checks come back as having a warning. so I can’t get any further. My site isn’t that big.. but I think it’s trying to package everything ( including back-up and plugins that I assume I don’t need to migrate. Is there a way round this ( I’m trying to down load my live site to WAMP so I can work on using a new theme )
As long as they are only warnings you should be able to continue, if you click on the section with the warning it should let you know different options on how to change from warning to good. You can also enable filters to ignore certain files/folders
Good post.
Thank you
Great! Thanks for sharing this information I am so very happy to read this information
Glad you like our article
Hi there! I’ve followed your instructions so far, and everything seems to go as it has, but I’ve stuck on Step 6.
I read: “To fix this, connect to your website using an FTP client and edit wp-config.php file. Provide the database name, user and password you created earlier in Step 3. Save the wp-config.php file and upload it back to your server. Visit your website, and it should be live now.”
Can you please be more specific? Where exactly do I find wp-config.php file and how do I edit it?
You would find the wp-config file where your WordPress folders are which is normally in the public_html or www folder of your hosting. You would use a text editor such as notepad or similar to edit the content of the file
Could be more helpful if you uploaded a video..
Thank you for your recommendation, we’ll certainly take a look for a possible video
“Click on the Import tab in the top menu. On the import page, click on Choose File button and then select the database file you saved in Step 1.” I cannot locate this file – no idea where to even look.
Hi Mike,
In the first step you would have saved a file to your computer. This is the file you need to import here.
Thank you very much for the information,
I have been doing these wrong in the past.
Fantastic how-to article. I followed it and easily migrated my site from localhost to the live server. Thanks for posting! I’m a newbie at moving a site, so I had to figure out some of the simplest things. One thing I had to discover was how to move the file folders from my computer to the host server using cPanel. After researching this, I discovered to ZIP the entire folder with all of its subfolders into a ZIP file and then upload that one file.
Fix Images and Broken Links by Updating Paths: How to update background images? The method mention in step 7, only work normal image not background images. So how to update images?
Hi Christian,
You’ll have to manually update those.
Hi guys, great tutorial.
But when i try to access my site through the url, it asks me to re-install WordPress (i mean is shows me the wizard of the WordPress when it starts)
Plus, when you say go to the database and create a new user, mySQL doesn’t have an option.
Hello please i followed all the steps but at the end of it all am getting an error message stating Erro In Establishing a database connection message
Hi, how do I proceed if there is no cPanel? Thank you in advance!
Hello! Great article. Just two things that I think would be cool to read on this subject.
1.Are there any tips of workflow in order to avoid the broken links, images etc. that you mention?
2.Also, I’ve read plugin reviews where users claim that some bad plugins will leave “trash code” (unusable code and files) after the uninstall/deletion of the plugin, which eventually makes their website slower. Is that true? If yes how could we, as beginners, detect that “trash code” (essentially the leftovers of plugins that we deleted) and remove it?
In my local website I try many plugins that I don’t intend to use and will end up deleting (like many others do), so I am interested in this.
Thank you in advance.
Hi Jasonas,
1. You can follow the steps above in order they appear to avoid broken links.
2. You can view leftover data in your WordPress database by using phpMyAdmin. However, we don’t recommend beginners to do that unless they are certain that this data is slowing down their website.
Hi,
I have been building my site on the local server, I now want to move it over to a temporary Url on my WordPress which is installed on my hosting package to finish and then once ready it will be pointed to the domain name which currently hosts the old site, I have attempted the above steps but I get as far as step 1 and have no idea where the export file goes?
Sorry if this is a silly question but can’t seem to find it anywhere!
Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Sally
Hi Sally,
Export file is automatically downloaded to your computer. Check your computer’s Downloads folder or any other folder where your browser usually stores downloaded files.
Hello,
Thanks, sorry can’t find it there at all. I emptied the folder and did it again but nothing appeared in there at all, hence asking the question.
All Safari downloads go into the normal download folder, so don’t know where it could be going. Going to give it a go with Duplicator and see if I get any further!
Thanks,
Sally
I think maybe you can try choose download custom instead of download quick, and then in output field, choose “Save output to a file” > Compression: > gzipped
Depending on your setup, it may not automatically download. It may open up in a new screen and you can then copy/paste it into a file and save yourself. Not sure if this is just a MAMP thing or what but when I migrated over to working on a Mac, this part of the steps changed.
Hi,
Your tutorials are great, thank you!
I have just been following this thread and not sure if what I am doing is wrong but I do Step 1 (Export) but no idea where the file that I am exporting goes?
I am running a local server on my Mac and have got stuck here, am I missing something?
I am trying to get my website from the local server to WordPress running on my hosting package with 123 Reg. This is going onto a temporary URL until I am ready to move onto the domain which has currently got the old website on it.
Any help will be much appreciated.
Many thanks
Sally
Thank you so much.
I have a wordpress website on live server, i want to replace it by another wordpress server that i created on localhost, i want to keep the same host and same domaine name. what should i do please ?
This is very helpful. I want to ask about the next step. What if I continue to develop locally and want to sync changes from time to time ? Do you have a tutorial for that ?
I have an issue where my laptop died with localhost MAMP server. I have been able to extract the all the files from the hard disc but I can’t run a database export.
I have an laptop set up with XAMP.
Any thoughts?
Sunday evening.
The client wants the website.
I have tried Duplicator all day long, no way.
Problems with PHP and DB, just doesn’t work… until I get to your post.
Back to basics man, manually put the live on air.
Thanks for sharing.
Its the simpler idea yet we try to automate things and get less work done sometimes.
Had to share with you my truly akcnowledgment.
Nicely done