Bring a site over from another host

Moving a site copies its files and database to your server. The old site isn’t changed, so it keeps running until you point your domain here.

1. Go to Sites, click Add site and choose Bring an existing site.
2. Pick the server and give the site a title, then click Continue.
3. On the new site’s page, choose how to bring it over: With our plugin or From backup files.

With our plugin

The simplest way, when you can log in to the old site’s WordPress admin.

1. Download our plugin (hosting-migrate.zip) from the new site’s page.
2. On the old site, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, upload it and activate it.
3. Go to Tools → Move to Hosting Project, paste the key shown on the new site’s page, and click Start moving.

Keep the plugin’s page open on the old site until it’s done. If it’s closed, open it again and click Start moving: it carries on where it stopped. When it’s finished, the plugin is removed from the new copy.

From backup files

When you have a backup instead, or can’t install plugins on the old site. Upload files up to 5 GB each, or add a download link for bigger ones. These work:

• a whole-site backup: a .zip, .tar.gz or .tgz (Duplicator’s archive, or your host’s backup)
• UpdraftPlus’s files: its database, plugins, themes, uploads and others files together
• an All-in-One WP Migration .wpress file (not an encrypted one)
• a zip of wp-content, with the database as a .sql or .sql.gz file

Keep the page open while the files upload. If your connection drops, the upload waits and carries on; after a long outage, click Resume, or choose the same file again to send only what’s missing.

When everything’s uploaded, click Import.

After the move

• Check the site on its temporary address before you connect your domain.
• If the old host used .htaccess rules (redirects, password protection), the site’s Overview lists them and what to do about each: most become a setting in the dashboard, and many aren’t needed here.
• The new site runs our default PHP version. If it needs another, change it on its Settings tab, under PHP.