WP Migrate Lite – WordPress Migration Made Easy

Migrate your database. Export full sites including media, themes, and plugins. Find and replace content with support for serialized data.

WP Migrate is a WordPress migration plugin that makes migrating your database and exporting full sites easy, fast, and stress-free.

WP Migrate Lite Features

Database Migrations

WP Migrate Lite can help move your WordPress database using an easy-to-follow three-step process.

Find and replace content directly within the user interface.
Export the SQL.
Import into your new database using a tool such as phpMyAdmin.

Simple, right? WordPress database migrations shouldn’t have to be overly complicated or cumbersome. With WP Migrate Lite, database transfers become so much easier.

Full-Site Exports

WP Migrate Lite can now export your entire site, including the database, media uploads, themes, plugins, and other files required to create an exact copy of your site in a new environment. In the same friendly interface you know, you can configure your export, choose what you want to include or exclude, and then single-click your way to a downloadable ZIP file of your complete site. A perfect solution for simple migrations and site copying.

Import to Local

Thanks to our good friends at WP Engine, Local—the #1 local WordPress development tool—can now import full-site ZIP archives that have been exported using WP Migrate. Simply drag and drop the downloaded ZIP file into Local and you’re up and running with a complete copy of your site in minutes.

Find & Replace

WP Migrate can find and replace content anywhere in your WordPress database with support for serialized data. This makes it easier to migrate your database without risk of corruption.

WP Migrate handles serialized data by first unserializing it, identifying individual strings, and replacing any matches with your desired content. Once this process is complete, the data is once again serialized and placed back in the database.

Example: s:5:"hello" becomes s:11:"hello world"

You can also run a find and replace on the current database even if you have no plans to migrate it.

Database Backups

WP Migrate can automatically back up your database before running a find and replace operation or on demand as needed.

Testimonials

We’ve made an impact since launching the first version of WP Migrate with over 300,000 active installs and hundreds of five-star reviews on WordPress.org. WP Migrate is, in our opinion, the best WordPress migration plugin. Don’t just take our word for it though:

[WP Migrate] might be the most amazing thing that has happened in a really long time in the #WordPress world – Pippin Williamson – Founder, Sandhills Development.

Today, I give continued thanks to @dliciousbrains for migrate db pro and the ease at which it offers migrations from dev-to-and-from-staging – Tom Mcfarlin – Senior Backend Engineer, WebDevStudios.

How did I ever survive without [WP Migrate] before? #winning – Jenny Beaumont – Senior Project Manager, Human Made.

Migrate More with WP Migrate Pro

If you’re in need of a complete, reliable, and fast push/pull site migration solution with fine-tuned control over the database, media uploads, themes, plugins, and other wp-content files, then WP Migrate Pro is for you.

The pro features in WP Migrate fit perfectly into any WordPress developer’s toolbox. Here’s what you get when you upgrade:

Priority email support.
Push and pull migrations that move the database, themes, plugins, media uploads, and other wp-content files directly between two WordPress sites.
Advanced multisite features like pushing a subsite to single-site install.
WP-CLI integration for running migrations from the command line.
Backup your data before starting the migration.
Targeted WordPress database migration. Select which tables to migrate and exclude post types from migrations.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’re always working on adding value to WP Migrate!

All of these features and more are yours when you upgrade to WP Migrate Pro.

Do I have to manually set up my WordPress migration every time?

No, WP Migrate uses “migration profiles” that allow you to save your WordPress migration settings to make the process as fast as possible.

Is WP Migrate compatible with WordPress multisite?

Yes, WP Migrate is compatible with multisites. With the Lite version, you can export, back up, and run find and replace operations across the entire multisite network. Upgrading to WP Migrate Pro opens up new possibilities for migrating single sites into or out of multisite networks. You can even migrate a subsite directly from one multisite to another.

Can I exclude spam comments from the migration?

You sure can! WP Migrate allows you to exclude spam comments from any WordPress migration in a click.

Will other plugins affect my WordPress migration?

Don’t worry! By default, WP Migrate places all plugins into compatibility mode during a migration, which prevents them from loading for migration requests only.

Specific plugins can be enabled to run during a migration using a straightforward admin interface.

Can I use the command line (WP-CLI)?

Yes, WP Migrate Lite includes export and find-replace commands. Qualifying licenses of WP Migrate Pro include even more WP-CLI commands to push, pull, import, and manage settings from the command line.

WP Migrate 2.6.1 – 2023-02-01

Improvement: Duplicator is now more compatible as a result of skipping references in the duplicator_packages table
Improvement: Windows servers and WAMP are now more compatible due to consistent handling of file paths
Bug Fix: Export file downloads no longer cause PHP warnings and notices
Bug Fix: Non-alphanumeric characters no longer break exported file downloads
Bug Fix: Media uploads date picker styles are no longer broken

WP Migrate 2.6.0 – 2023-01-19

New: Full-site exports including the database and files are now available to all users
New: Exported ZIP archives are now compatible with drag-and-drop importing to Local
New: Highlights from recent releases are now communicated through the What’s New tab
Improvement: Exports can now be performed without defining the URL or Path
Improvement: CLI exports can once again accept paths with slashes so an export can be saved to a directory that is different from where the command is executed
Bug Fix: Large export file downloads no longer cause errors

WP Migrate 2.5.0 – 2022-11-22

Improvement: Doctrine Cache is no longer a dependency
Bug Fix: HTML entities in profile names are now rendered correctly

WP Migrate 2.4.2 – 2022-10-21

Bug Fix: Limited file permissions outside of the uploads directory no longer prevent find and replace operations on hosts like Pantheon
Bug Fix: Empty custom pairs are no longer processed during find and replace operations

WP Migrate 2.4.1 – 2022-10-12

Bug Fix: Find and replace via CLI is now more compatible with PHP 8 and above

WP Migrate 2.4.0 – 2022-09-22

Improvement: Temporary tables and directories are now cleaned up after migration failure
Improvement: Re-rendering of the user interface is now optimized
Improvement: Settings sliders are now more accessible
Improvement: Migration complete modal is now more accessible

WP Migrate 2.3.3 – 2022-08-12

Improvement: Settings sliders now have a visible focus style and improved keyboard accessibility
Improvement: Error log messages now provide additional context about the migration to assist our support team

WP Migrate 2.3.2 – 2022-07-11

Bug Fix: Activating or upgrading WP Migrate Lite no longer results in the following error: “The plugin does not have a valid header.”

WP Migrate 2.3.1 – 2022-05-19

Bug Fix: WP Migrate no longer initializes on pages outside of WP Admin in order to improve front-end performance

WP Migrate 2.3.0 – 2022-03-30

New: “WP Migrate DB” is now “WP Migrate Lite”
New: CLI commands now support migrate base command as an alias of migratedb
Improvement: CLI exports no longer require find/replace arguments
Improvement: Notices are now styled to reflect their state (success, error, warning, or information)

WP Migrate 2.2.2 – 2022-01-11

Bug Fix: Opening Find & Replace no longer results in a JavaScript error when SCRIPT_DEBUG is true
Bug Fix: Custom Find & Replace URL for exports no longer includes the protocol
Bug Fix: Altered unsaved profiles can now be saved

WP Migrate 2.2.1 – 2021-11-09

Bug Fix: WP Migrate DB profiles can now be re-saved without requiring a page refresh

WP Migrate 2.2.0 – 2021-10-18

New: Find & Replace tool now includes an option to preview changes before applying them to the database
Improvement: Keyboard navigation is now more accessible thanks to new focus styles throughout the plugin
Bug Fix: WP Migrate DB is now more compatible with other plugins that use Composer’s autoloader and have dependencies with the same name

WP Migrate 2.1.2 – 2021-08-30

Improvement – Accessibility: Better support for Skip to main content keyboard navigation.

WP Migrate 2.1.1 – 2021-08-18

Improvement: Migrations can now be run on sites that use the default permalink structure
Bug fix: PHP fatal error when running find and replace on a serialized unclonable object
Bug fix: PHP notices during an existing find and replace related to the addition of regex support

WP Migrate 2.1 – 2021-08-04

New: Case-sensitive custom find and replace
Improvement: Show a notice when the REST API is disabled or inaccessible

WP Migrate 2.0.2 – 2021-06-17

Improvement: “Search & Replace” updated to “Find & Replace” for consistency
Bug fix: Some PHP files can be directly accessed in a browser
Bug fix: Rewrite rules lost after migration

WP Migrate 2.0.1 – 2021-05-06

Bug fix: Replacing a string with nothing not supported
Bug fix: Plugin not working on sites with a custom REST API URL
Bug fix: Plugin not working on sites with a custom plugin directory
Bug fix: ‘gmdateI18n’ function not available on older versions of WordPress
Bug fix: Javascript file with tilde in filename blocked by some firewalls

WP Migrate 2.0 – 2021-04-28

New: Brand new user interface powered by React. Read the release post
New: Automatically save the last 10 migrations
New: Ability to rename profiles from the profiles tab
New: Added ‘wpmdb_replace_json_encode_flags’ filter for modifying how data is JSON-encoded during a search/replace

WP Migrate 1.0.17 – 2021-02-03

Bug fix: Deprecated PHP code causes warnings in PHP 8+
Bug fix: Regex to match recursive serialized records matches non-serialized data
Bug fix: Invert selection UI option doesn’t work on newer versions of WordPress
Improvement: Fix several styling issues
Improvement: Replace ANSI quotes with backticks for better MySQL compatibility

WP Migrate 1.0.16 – 2020-09-14

Bug fix: Find & Replace migrations do not replace data that is JSON encoded
Bug fix: The Filesystem::chmod() method does not function correctly and silently logs an error
Bug fix: Running a migration without find and replace values throws a PHP warning

WP Migrate 1.0.15 – 2020-07-30

Bug fix: Check boxes are not saved correctly in plugin settings

WP Migrate 1.0.14 – 2020-07-28

Bug fix: Invalid $_POST values are returned in plain text which is a cross site scripting (XSS) risk

WP Migrate 1.0.13 – 2020-03-17

Bug fix: Usage of get_magic_quotes_gpc() triggers a warning on PHP 7.4+
Bug fix: WordPress home and site_url values are set incorrectly on multisite installs with the ‘ms_files_rewriting’ option set
Bug fix: PHP warning during JSON find & replace if search or replace value is empty

WP Migrate 1.0.12 – 2020-02-26

Bug fix: Sanitize $_GET parameter when triggering download for export
Bug fix: Sanitize $_GET parameter when downloading backup file
Bug fix: Call to undefined end_ajax() method
Bug fix: Use of PHP compact() function not working with PHP 7.3+
Bug fix: Search & replace did not work with JSON encoded content in the wp_posts table

WP Migrate 1.0.11 – 2019-04-30

Bug fix: WP_Filesystem initialized on all wp-admin pages

WP Migrate 1.0.10 – 2019-02-12

Improvement: Compatibility with MySQL 8
Improvement: UI Updates

WP Migrate 1.0.9 – 2019-01-29

Bug fix: Bit fields with a value of NULL are handled incorrectly
Improvement: Major refactor to remove third-party dependency injection container

WP Migrate 1.0.8 – 2018-11-29

Bug fix: WordPress filesystem class not correctly loaded and causes 500 error
Improvement: Remove deprecated PHP code making PHP 7+ compatibility checks pass

WP Migrate 1.0.7 – 2018-11-21

Bug fix: WP Migrate DB Anonymization plugin no longer functions
Bug fix: 500 errors occur when another plugin is installed that includes Composer
Improvement: Add Theme & Plugin Files Addon to addons list
Improvement: Remove un-needed template files

WP Migrate 1.0.6 – 2018-11-19

New: Increased PHP version requirement from PHP 5.2+ to PHP 5.4+
Improvement: Major reorganization of the PHP code into better classes and a better folder structure

WP Migrate 1.0.5 – 2018-11-09

New: Updated YouTube video in migration progress modal
Bug fix: Duplicate JavaScript causes console error

WP Migrate 1.0.4 – 2018-09-13

Bug fix: Overall progress bar spins when font-awesome loaded

WP Migrate 1.0.3 – 2018-09-10

Bug fix: Usage of static keyword errors in PHP 5.2.4

WP Migrate 1.0.2 – 2017-10-25

Bug fix: Some plugins causing “Invalid nonce” errors when using compatibility mode
Bug fix: Error for invalid permissions for Exports not displaying

WP Migrate 1.0.1 – 2017-09-14

Bug Fix: Parse error on PHP 5.2
Bug Fix: Row not set for wpmdb_replace_custom_data filter

WP Migrate 1.0 – 2017-08-11

New: Plugins and themes are disabled by default for HTTP requests made by WP Migrate for better performance and compatibility
Improvement: Page is reloaded automatically after migrations that alter the wp_options, wp_users, and wp_usermeta tables
Improvement: Additional constants added to the diagnostic log for better debugging by our support team
Improvement: Compatibility mode directory permission errors are now dismissable and fewer notices are displayed
Bug Fix: Find & Replace not operating on wp_site and wp_blogs tables on multisite

WP Migrate 0.9.2 – 2016-12-16

Bug Fix: Fixing 500 error for exports due to missing dependency on the WPMDB_Filesystem class

WP Migrate 0.9.1 – 2016-12-15

Bug Fix: Tables occasionally shown as completed twice, throwing off migration progress
Bug Fix: Backups run before find/replace operations sometimes have incorrect encoding

WP Migrate 0.9 – 2016-10-20

New: In-place Find & Replace functionality added – a find and replace can now be run on a site’s own database
New: CLI find-replace subcommand added
Improvement: Removed font-family declarations from stylesheets
Improvement: Truncate WP Migrate diagnostic log to always be < 1MB, to help with memory exhaustion errors
Improvement: Added help tooltips for the default find and replace fields
Improvement: Added multisite specific constants to the diagnostic log
Improvement: “Clear Error Log” button only removes error messages and updates any changed diagnostic values
Improvement: Total stage progress now remains visible when scrolling migration item progress
Improvement: Show/Hide Tables setting does not persist between sessions.
Improvement: Progress bar animations now reflect paused migration state
Improvement: JS files now include a version number to better avoid cache issues

WP Migrate 0.8 – 2016-04-12

New: Migration progress UI
New: Individual table migration progress
New: Migration progress shown in title bar
New: Settings tab UI
Improvement: Adding a new find/replace row now automatically adds focus to the new “find” input
Improvement: Compatibility with WordPress 4.5

WP Migrate 0.7.2 – 2015-12-03

Improvement: “Migrate” button renamed to “Export”
Improvement: Uses WP_Filesystem instead of direct PHP filesystem functionality where possible
Improvement: Remove Find & Replace row icon is now a little dimmer to reduce UI clutter
Improvement: Compatibility with WordPress 4.4

WP Migrate 0.7.1 – 2015-07-09

Improvement: Added more diagnostic info to facilitate debugging
Improvement: Global JS variables moved to single global object to avoid conflicts
Bug Fix: WP Migrate DB and Pro can be activated at the same time when activating plugins in bulk or via WP-CLI
Bug Fix: BINARY data not exported properly
Bug Fix: BIT data not exported properly
Bug Fix: When post_max_size is set to 0 (unlimited), wpmdb_bottleneck is broken
Bug Fix: Saved Profiles link is broken in certain situations

WP Migrate 0.7 – 2015-06-12

New: WP-CLI export subcommand
New: Quick copy find textbox value to replace textbox by clicking arrow icon in between (hat tip Jonathan Perlman)
New: Added filters to hook into find & replace routine and deal with encoded data (example)
Improvement: Greatly reduced data passed through each HTTP request for better security and reliability
Improvement: Massive overhaul of input sanitization for better security
Improvement: Add _mig_ prefix to wpmdb_alter_statements table
Improvement: Cleanup wpmdb_alter_statements tables from failed migrations
Improvement: Show dimmed remove icons in find & replace rows to indicate they can be removed
Improvement: Dim remove icons next to saved profiles
Improvement: Better error message when empty response received from remote server
Improvement: Added diagnostic info to facilitate debugging and decrease time to resolution for support requests
Improvement: Warning notice when WP_HTTP_BLOCK_EXTERNAL constant is set to true
Improvement: Leave it to WordPress core to convert tables to utf8mb4
Improvement: Workaround to fix issues with Siteground’s staging environments
Bug fix: Connection URL with space(s) in beginning failing
Bug fix: Cancelling a gzipped Export does not remove file
Bug fix: Unusual table names causing regular expressions to fail
Bug fix: Preserving options not working when default subsite is not 1
Bug fix: NAN% shown at beginning of a migration
Bug fix: Migration progress bar is overflowing the scale, passing 100%
Bug fix: Custom post type links broken after migration with Compatibility Mode enabled
Bug fix: Saving a new profile does not change the URL to that saved profile URL

WP Migrate 0.6.1 – 2014-10-29

New: breadcrumb-style UI for saved profiles
New: Brazilian Portugese translation
Security: Added .htaccess to backup folder to help prevent direct downloads
Security: False values not included in signature
Improvement: Compatibility with TGM Plugin Activation
Improvement: Fixed hundreds of PHP Code Sniffer warnings
Improvement: Switch to update_site_option() and get_site_option()
Improvement: Cleaner and more instructive error message on JSON decoding failure
Improvement: New hooks to massage data before and after find & replace
Improvement: Common server security rules better accommodated
Improvement: Better compatibility with SSL on WP Engine
Improvement: Minify all the Javascripts
Improvement: Use PHP’s DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR instead of our own constant
Improvement: Updated tons of translation strings to be translator-friendly
Improvement: Find & replace field error messages could suggest removing the fields
Improvement: Download button for Diagnostic Info & Error Log
Bug fix: 404 errors after successful migrations due to caching
Bug fix: Multisite exports broken on PHP < 5.4.7
Bug fix: Using relative paths for file includes
Bug fix: Typing new profile name does not select “Create new profile” option
Bug fix: Find & replace field errors stick around even after removing fields
Bug fix: wpmdb_error_log option is auto loading
Bug fix: Inconsistent stripping of slashes
Bug fix: Spinner is inconsistent with WP 3.8+ spinner
Bug fix: Apostrophe in path not being handled
Bug fix: Inappropriate use of htmlentities()
Bug fix: The table tooltip still shows during the media files migration
Bug fix: Import/Export issues between MySQL 5.1 and 5.5+
Bug fix: Notice error on Updates dashboard page
Bug fix: Signature verification error when local and remote plugins are different versions
Bug fix: Find & replace handle icon is rendering poorly
Bug fix: PHP Notice: Undefined variable: safe_mode
Bug fix: Fatal error: Cannot use object of type WP_Error as array in verify_download()

WP Migrate 0.6 – 2014-08-19

New: Updated the migration UI to include a detailed progress bar, time elapsed, pause and cancel buttons and more!
New: Option to exclude transients (temporary cached data)
New: Migration profiles
New: Setting to configure the maximum request size (how much data is exported in a given HTTP request)
Improvement: Unlimited find & replace fields with drag & drop reordering

WP Migrate 0.5 – 2013-07-26

Language support! Thanks to an awesome pull request from Rafael Funchal.
New Language: Brazilian Portugese
Added filter for the filename of the exported file
Bug fix: Spam commentmeta included when “Do not export spam comments” checked
Bug fix: Fatal error method error does not exist
Bug fix: Table names with dashes not exporting
Bug fix: Find & replace is case-sensitive but shouldn’t

WP Migrate 0.4.4 – 2013-05-19

Pro version has arrived! Added some info to the sidebar.
Updated required version to WordPress 3.0+
Bug fix: Does not handle serialized objects
Bug fix: Admin menu disappears when DISALLOW_FILE_MODS is true
Bug fix: Duplicate records on export
Bug fix: Updated spinner image for HiDPI displays

WP Migrate 0.4.3 – 2012-12-18

Fixed deprecated error notices when debug mode is on
Bug fix: Exports views as tables
Compatibility tested with WordPress 3.5

WP Migrate 0.4.2 – 2012-09-13

Moved screenshots to /assets folder and updated them to support retina
Added sidebar including author profile and survey to gauge interest for a pro version