How to MANUALLY Migrate Your Wordpress Site (still works in 2025)

[@quietdeluxe]

Wow, after many years of relying on migration plugins with one problem after another, I've learned how to move a site manually with your video. I really can't thank you enough!

[@malayswain]

After 5 years, successfully migrated a website without usng any plugin after watching this video, you have earned a subscriber. God bless.:)

[@TheSearchSherpa]

This was an excellent and comprehensive instructions. And NOT ONE sales pitch for a masterclass. Am I still in KZbin? Have I travelled back in time to a world before everyone was a guru?

[@rubendamsgaard]

Lmao

[@rubendamsgaard]

Oh btw if you wanna scale your webdev and grow your business to the next level... I have a masterclass ;) lolol

[@edwardhacklbain1827]

I have used many plugins and methods out there (such as, all-in-one wp migration, Duplicator, Cloning ... etc) to migrate my websites, large ones as well as small, from different hosts and within the same host but never they gave intended results. All those plugins have been created for few specific cases and can not be used for other general scenarios. This manual method as Josh explains is the best and trouble free method that can be used in general. I recommend this method to be used if you don't want to waste time and disappointment. Thank you Josh.

[@JoshHallco]

Well said, Edward. Thanks for the comment!

[@JunFausto]

very helpful. been awake for 12 hours finding the right tutorial to transfer my old website to the new one. thank you for this. this is amazing!

[@johnbraun]

I refer back to this video every time a do a Wordpress transfer. Great video.

[@juliajl7420]

Thank you veeery much !!! You saved my life. It worked and i could transfer my websites after following your guideline . When thinking, i have known a reliable way to transfer sites without relying on other plugins, I am sooo happy. I m sooo glad that I could find your this tutorial youtube video accidentally and finally . Plzzz load more tutorials!!!

[@cameronvibbert3604]

I'm just going to go ahead and leave what I think is my FIRST KZbin comment ever while my WP-Content is uploading and say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for this video and saving me time, money, and headache learning this elsewhere. Videos like this on the public domain are what make me believe in the internet. God bless.

[@JoshHallco]

Thanks for the awesome feedback, Cameron! Glad to hear this one helped you out :)

[@PeterPapayiannis]

After trying the All-in-one-Migration and hitting the wall because of the file size upload limit.. I tried your method and it worked! Excellent presentation of step by step for dummies. Thank You!

[@taura101]

Hey Josh, a 1,000 thank yous and tonnes of gratitude for this video. I spent 4.5 hours yesterday trying to migrate a 1,000 page site with the all-in-one wp migration tool. I reduced the w.press file down from 525MB, to 497MB, to 470MB, to 455MB and none of them worked. They all hung! I had such a hard time yesterday that I had no faith that the paid version would even work. Losing money would pale next to the amount of time that would be lost raising their support across time zones etc etc. Losing more time, not migrating the site and not learning anything was the biggest cost I dreaded. Then this morning the first video KZbin served me was Simplest way to transfer/migrate your WordPress website to another host in 7 mins and the second was yours: How to MANUALLY Migrate Your Wordpress Site. Talk about serendipity. Or the Google Chrome - KZbin algorithm. Even though the first video is very good, I chose yours to work with because of all the step-by-step documentation and timestamps you provided (plus your site that I linked through too!). Long story short, I followed step by step, screenshotting all the steps I took to create a 78 page Google how-to-do-this doc with our-sites-on-our-servers document for my future reference and as training tool for a future team member. Everything went well until this step at 16:13 - Check new site. The browser showed a critical error alert where the site should have been. I got onto webhost support. They increased the memory limit to 128MB in the php.ini in the MultiPHP INI Editor panel and suddenly the site displayed. The only other unexpected step was the Velvet Blues Update URLs recommendation to back up the imported site before updating the URLS. Which I did follow. Apart from these two off-script variations, your step-by-step was perfect. I got a great result from the time invested. I got a great how-to-document out of it. I have broken through a barrier. Thank you for this video and this result. Consider me a future Cpanel course student. I will happily pay the tuition fee not only for that course but also for the help and education and sense of real achievement that following your video has given me. I am so pleased to know now how to manually migrate a wordpress site from one domain to another (or one subdomain to another). Even more pleased to have achieved this first with a big site. This smile is going to hang around for quite a while. :) :) Thank you again Josh.

[@JoshHallco]

Yeah big sites and migration tools RARELY play nicely together. Knowing how to do it manually is key. So glad to hear it helped!

[@taura101]

@@JoshHallco Unfortunately the story does not have a good end. My WP-admin login worked after the migration because I did some surface editing: logo etc. Then today wp-admin login displayed just anchor text links (that click through to 403 pages) instead of the normal dashboard. I got onto webhost support whose troubleshooting led them to escalating a ticket to clone the site again. So in 24-48 hours we'll see how that goes. I have no idea what happened.

[@DavidElstob73]

This is one of the most valuable tutorials for WordPress ever. It's saved me heaps of cash and made me feel comfortable with databases.

[@JoshHallco]

Awesome to hear, David! I go into database, file manager, domain/email settings and more in even more detail in my cPanel course if interested in more! joshhall.co/product/joshs-cpanel-course

[@hrinaldy]

Strongly agree...

[@MarnikBradt]

Nice & works like a charm! I did ran into an issue due to WordPress versions being different: the old site still was 4.8.21 while the new had already 6.0.3. The problem's root cause is that with different WP version, the database structure might be different as well. Solved it by reinstalling WP on the new site but with a WP version that was close (4.8.3) to the version of the orginal site. I did not choose to upgrade the WP version on the old site as it also contained a lot of out-dated plugins. Kinda bad management of the previous administrator. After migration, I took a full backup of the site (I recommend the BACKWPUP plugin) for safety and then updated WP and the outdated plugins. New fresh and up2dated and secure site and a happy customer as a result.

[@neelamsingh1936]

This manual method Worked for me very well, Wordpress transfer plugins were not working for me... A big thank you to you...👍

[@boniprakarsa5090]

It's true what the title said, 2024 the tricks still work. Thanks for the help Josh!

[@TheAtheriel]

I'm a complete noob to Wordpress and was absolutely dreading my site migration, but this was a walk in the park! Thanks so much, Josh! Amazingly detailed and valuable tut 🙌🙌🙌

[@JoshHallco]

Love it! Thanks for the comment :)

[@FreeWebTechResources]

@@JoshHallco He is so frank and direct , I appreciate people that make Tuts Pratical, and easy to follow:)

[@gayateknation3678]

Finally, this video is the best answer to a huge issue concerning website migration

[@shahabhussain]

Josh your tutorial has helped me on a whole new level. The level of clarity I have achieved through your easy-to-follow steps is unbelievable. Kudos to you!!

[@JoshHallco]

Thanks for the note, Shahab! Awesome to hear.

[@TheAlisaMae]

Thank you so very much for your help, I have been back and forth with my hosting account for a month trying to get my websites back up and you showed me how in 20 mins. You are the best!!!!

[@bradames7432]

HUGE thank you Josh for taking an intimidating task and breaking it down with expert step by step instructions in human speak. I almost can't believe I got it right the first time!

[@JoshHallco]

Great to hear, Bradley!

[@joeyperera201]

Tried many videos on the internet and only through your video I could do the successful transfer. Thanks a billion.

[@ebonychild]

I was having so much trouble with upload limits from my web host, and this manual upload just totally bypassed all of that. All I needed was to upload only the essentials. Absolute godsend Josh, thank you so much!

[@mpiyi1325]

Short Cut : How To Increase Max File Size In WP All In One Migration | 100% Working | 2020 kzbin.info/www/bejne/hqvPknd3hM5jpLs

[@pipoplays4215]

Thank you so much. All the other tutorials which used plugins either didn't work or just wanted money.

[@tellastoryke7211]

May God bless you for proving this abundance of knowledge free of charge. My heart melts when I land on a channel where the explainer explains everything in detail and takes me step by step through all that I should do. It worked perfectly well. Now I have my site up and I'm so so happy. Thank you so much Josh!

[@samiaaslam6385]

Josh, you are the best! I was trying hard to migrate a site with the help of plugins, but the site was too huge. Then, I decided to do a manual migration, and your video saved my life. I haven't commented on any KZbin videos before. Your video forced me to say Thanks to you. I'm so grateful for this video.

[@taipramadani1479]

2020 and still rescuing people! Thank you so much. After 8 failed attempts, this was the instruction I should have seen first :)

[@JoshHallco]

Thanks Taip :) Yeah nothing better than a basic, foundational and timeless understanding of cPanel, file structure, databases, etc! No pressure but if you ever want to take your knowledge with all of that to the next level, I have my cPanel course now: joshhall.co/product/joshs-cpanel-course If interested at any point, contact me and I'll send a promo your way :)

[@roman__saavedra]

Finally a tutoral that works!! Thank you so much!

[@souljabroable]

It worked great, I migrated my 1.4GB site from a shared hosting plan to a VPS and everything works perfectly!

[@JoshHallco]

Awesome!!! Yeah moving that site with a plugin would've likely had a timeout or other transfer issues.

[@aerik999]

You are radical, subbed and alerted to all posts.

[@JoshHallco]

Awesome, Eric :) More on the way!

[@kai.akimoto]

Thank you very much Josh! I've been struggling on transferring the files and have used a lot of duplicating tools but to no avail. Your step-by-step tutorial really did work, you literally saved my job. Thank you very much!

[@indian3960]

Still Working for Whole Life!!! Thanks, Josh!!! Updraft Plus also help:)

[@charellepizzotti6834]

I tried several plugins that didn't work for me. This worked. Thank you!

[@makerturk8000]

I moved my website to a different server in the same host probably in under 15 minutes, watching this video... And everything seems to work fine. Thanks a lot!

[@mccracken3047]

Your tutorial is so good, you make me feel like I actually know what I'm doing. You just saved me $75! I have to subscribe just as a matter of principal.

[@snackbob100]

you are the sal khan on wordpress. thank you so much. you do not skip or assume any details. you are clear and consice, you explain everything. Very very good. please keep up the good work and teh videos coming! i tried everything, all in one wp, dilutor or whatever it is, this is the only system i could understand and implement

[@weblogic6491]

Hi Josh, Just want to thank you for all the amazing tutorials you're putting up. You're very clear and concise in your explanation and it makes it really easy to follow. Always look forward to what you're going to share every week. Keep them coming! Imran

[@JoshHallco]

Thanks for that awesome feedback, Imran! It's great to hear and much appreciated.

[@AfricanFlightStar]

Agreed 100%!

[@everynone5805]

second time I needed this tutorial! :)) Great work man... thx a lot for it.

[@JoshHallco]

It's a bookmarker for sure! I even have to go back to it from time to time 😂

[@amitgrade]

Thanks a lot for this awesome tutorial. I just want to know, is this method also applicable in the case if we want to change only hosting company and not domain name?

[@gnolmikable]

Hi Josh, Just letting you know I tried to migrate my site and watched 4 diff youtube videos before I found yours! None of the others worked but yours did! You're amazing!

[@JoshHallco]

Awesome to hear it worked for you, Kim Long!

[@frederikmoerbe]

I have spent several days migrating my website. With thousands of 500 and 404 errors, I am finally getting to the best video that will lead me to success. Thanks a lot Josh!

[@JoshHallco]

Hope this tutorial will be your last stop @Frederik!

[@krishnakumarkkm]

Josh Thanks a ton for this tutorial. I was having a hard time migrating a website, used duplicator, Aio, Wivid etc. but no use. I just followed your steps in tutorial and finally got the migration done. I am really grateful for this detailed tutorial and appreciate your efforts for making this video. PS. THIS METHOD STILL WORKS IN 2022.

[@alexanderkosik7000]

Extremely extremely helpful - I had one issue but all I had to do was clear the site cache; I am beyond impressed you are a true lifesaver and an expert - my gratitude for all the help you are just a badass plain and simple

[@rysulrohan]

I have no words to thank you as you deserve. This issues has suffered me almost 4-5 months untill I found your video and solved my problem within 1 hours. You just awesome bro. 🤘😎💙💙

[@dennis_woo]

You are right! It still works in 2024. I was trying various migration or backup plug-ins to make a staging or development version on my local machine running XAMPP. Alot have failed. Your method works! B4 this I was watching another youtuber about how to manually migrate but somehow it was confusing to me. Your video made it easy for me to understand. Thanks

[@lynnbell2]

This video is by far the BEST. I was able to manually move my WP site to another ISP. It worked perfectly.

[@JoshHallco]

Awesome to hear, Sherry!

[@scottnichols405]

Thanks Josh, I can confirm this works in 2023 with HostGator. HostGator advertises they will migrate sites for you, but fails to mention or at least not made obvious there is a cap on how many files they can migrate. Luckily I found your video, watched it all the way through once, then followed along while migrating. Made it through with minimal errors. Thanks so much, we are live!!!

[@JoshHallco]

Great to know, Scott! Thank you and congrats on a successful migration 😬

[@robnicoleberetics3798]

Wow, Bravo Sir, I have been a hobbyist for 10 years and this is the first I was able to successfully transfer a site to new hosting with no issues. I was able to move 10 before the first one finished with the old method that I knew through FTP upload. Thank you for the video.

[@satheeshkumar999]

Thank you so much, man. You saved my life, still this method working in 2020. You earned one subscriber.

[@ziggamalay]

Ive used this video about 4-5 times in the last 3 years and it literally is the only way I know that works to actually migrate a wordpress site, so thank you so much for the video!

[@JoshHallco]

@ziggamalay glad it keeps working for ya! Honored to be a bookmark on your browser 💪😬

[@JosiahBanjo]

After, watching so many tutorials on migrating WP sites, this is the best so far. Thanks @Josh

[@SLBizTech]

Thank you very very much for this video. I tried many plugins, but nothing works. But I did what you teach. It works well. I'm say thank you from my heart! All the best!!!

[@derekjoneslighting]

Hey Josh... Thanks for your tutorial. I've used it twice. You would think I'd learn from the first go!!! but there are a few steps to get right and this tutorial has worked for me twice. Thanks very much.

[@bailor6257]

Thank you so much! Your tutorial is excellent. It just helped me restore a customer's site from my backup (since he no longer has access to his old host account).

[@acuellaralfaro8246]

For 3 days in a row I tried with several options to accomplish this, my website was bigger that 500 mb, and this was my option but...it took me a whole day to make it work (migrated and modified everything at least 8 times) to discover at then that: If you have a SSL certificate enabled in your old domain, YOU MUST HAVE ONE PREVIOUSLY ENABLED IN THE NEW DOMAIN, otherwise it doesn´t work. Josh by the way, you´re awesome! thanks for this tutorial!

[@mariaali1249]

After purchasing the All in one WP migration, I spent 15 hours uploading three times without success. My site is up and running after trying this manual technique once. Thank you so much!! You are amazing!

[@JoshHallco]

Great to hear this worked for you! Migration plugins are great...until they don't work. And every once in a while, manual is the way to go 💪

[@gulaidso]

OMG! It actually works! Massive Thanks to you Josh Hall. :)

[@ricardochaidez1853]

Best tutorial for wordpress migration. Other websites make it super complicated, you made it clear and easy. Thanks man.

[@JoshHallco]

Thanks Ricardo!

[@abacon]

Thanks, @Josh for this very easy to follow video. I successfully migrated my site following your instructions. Many thanks for sharing your knowledge so freely.

[@WayoTokayo]

Yes , Still work in 2023 almost 2024! Thanks for your tutorial!! it really helped me !!!

[@ronarmengol1677]

Hi Josh, just went through your tutorial, still works well in 2021, love from Zambia. Brilliant stuff!!

[@DanSchenker]

This is the only tutorial that I came across that actually helped from beginning to end in a clear, simple way. Thanks so much!

[@inakatharinabauer]

Dear Josh, with this tutorial I have learned more than in all the years before regarding content and database. Now, it seems so easy - without all that bs with plugins - I am just so happy. Thank you very much!

[@JoshHallco]

I wish I could like a comment more than once :) This the reason I created this tutorial because I felt the same way for so many years! I'm a simple guy so I try to explain things as simple as possible. Database stuff can certainly be confusing. S glad this helped you out!

[@bilisimdunyas5017]

I love you :D I needed to migrate my website. Although I took all the necessary backups, I encountered an error in all installations on my new server until I watched your video.

[@WPCourseGuide]

This tutorial has saved me so much money moving my sites from Bluehost over to SiteGround. There is a $30 fee per site to have SiteGround do it, but this tutorial has saved me upwards of $300. Thanks so much!

[@JoshHallco]

Love it! That is the absolute best feedback for me to hear, Will. Thanks so much for letting me know. And now you have a serious $$$ saving technique that you'll be able to use over and over again when transferring sites. Cheers!

[@YairDeR]

I migrated my site to a different hosting provider without a full backup just half. Still had acces to the old hosting database etc, you saved my life. Thank you

[@JoshHallco]

Oh been there before! But unfortunately without this tutorial so I had some horrible experiences. Glad to help!

[@muhammadadilqureshi2331]

Awesome...As I have been using GoDaddy, I couldn't find the "home" option to edit the URL. But then I found that there are more then one page in that option section. So I clicked "next", and there was "home" option. There you can edit the home URL. And now my website migration is successfully completed. Thanks to Josh. :)

[@aliendesign2023]

Not only is this the still relevant in 2021. This has been the most helpful tutorial on migration that I have run across and I've seen several. Excellent tutorial. You've earned another subscriber!

[@JoshHallco]

Much appreciated and glad to hear it helped, Reece!!

[@jimmymotsei4102]

This video is a classic...been wanting to do this for ages and finally i got it right. Cannot thank you enough, Sir.

[@brianha8829]

Moved my site from Bluehost to HostGator using this video, thank you for creating it

[@tamzinarundel417]

I have never subscribed to anything but you explain it so well and it actually works. Thank you.

[@NielVaughan]

CHAMP! This method is going straight into my back pocket. Worked for a major site transfer and saved me so much time and pain not needing to use FTP!

[@fady904]

God bless you man for making this detailed video. The biggest challenge was to come across your video!! Thank you.

[@FluentinLove]

Got to 14:50 and realized i need to stop the video abruptly and like and subscribe right away. Great job on explaining things! Databases can be a pain to understand. I can see clearly now the rain is gone.

[@JoshHallco]

@Richard 🙏 amazing comment :)

[@JulietJulius]

Hey Josh. Thanks for this tutorial, it helped me a ton. I had used a migration plugin and everything had gone haywire. Your video is 100% no fluff. You just gained a new subscriber👍👍👍

[@taneliharkonen2463]

Phucking awesome Josh!! All other tutorials focus of high level plugin operation and not how to do it at file level! Thanks so much for thorough explanation! :D

[@tailonetaylorchiyangwa1769]

This video has literally saved me over US$10 000. Thank you so much Josh!

[@juancarlosrodriguez5022]

Thanks a lot, Josh. I followed every step you presented and managed to successfully migrate a website to a different hosting and domain. God bless.

[@guyelensky2806]

Thank you so much for this video. It's truly great. Saved my project just now! Many thanks.

[@PabloAlvestegui]

AIOWPM was not working even with the "unlimited" extension... I remembered watching this some years ago so I came back and followed along. Boom! Easy peasy, Josh, you're a master. Thanks so much.

[@alexandersilvar]

This method works perfectly, all everyone has to do is be patience, go slowly step by step and that's all. No plugin needed. Thanks Josh, successful migration. I did not use the plugin because I used different hosting but same domain name, again thank your.

[@JoshHallco]

Couldn't have said it better myself! Thanks for the feedback and pumped it worked!

[@idowuoluwatoyosi9500]

You really might not understand how helpful this video was to me, thank you very much!!!

[@abdussamad8127]

Success in my first attempt just because of you. Appriciate your effort! Thanks.

[@cleencarma]

I am far from being tech savvy but your video was so much easier to follow than using a plugin to migrate my site. Thank you!

[@LioKayy]

this literally fixed my issues. A four year old video is still good to migrate in 2021. Thank you!

[@JoshHallco]

I love timeless solutions! Glad to hear it helped :)

[@Od4n]

This is very helpful, thank you. I was hesitating cloning a website to use it for a different domain in a subfolder of a WP installation. (And another quirk, which is hosting related as no cPanel) I am now confident and get my hands dirty. Best video content all week.

[@ondaroot4332]

Hola Moly, I did not know NOTHING about all that and watched heaps of different videos but this helped me out sooooooooo much!!!! Not an easy way but definitely the BEST!!! Thanx a lot!! Just transferred my first site - How cool is that!!!! U rock!

[@parmenaskisengese9782]

I spend two days trying all sorts of site migration. I am really glad I came across your channel. I am finally able to migrate my sites without any issues. Keep up man!

[@mettur2008]

You had saved my day. Almost a month of thinking different option for migration, yours is very simple, straight forward and easy to understand. Thanks a lot.

[@zzpaco]

Years later... I'm right into this thing now. I can't wait to impress my boss with a new skill. Thanks a ton !

[@JoshHallco]

AWESOME! This knowledge and skillset definitely makes you more and more invaluable!

[@joey2421]

Awesome mate thank you very much! I followed so many guides including some from my new host with no luck. Your video helped me so thank you very much!!

[@digitalgenerationspace]

This process works 100%! I've used this steps in migrating 15+ small WP sites. Though plugins make our lives easier, it still counts to know how to do things manually. Thanks for this manual Josh!

[@JoshHallco]

@digitalgenerationspace wonderful to hear! So glad this continues to work for ya 🔥

[@amnazafar1254]

I'd say this is the best and the only tutorial i went by that solved my problem after stressing for hours.....AMAZING WORK!!!

[@buck4796]

Thanks Josh for your detailed video. I successfully complete the migration process following the steps in the video, given the limitation of 'All-In-One Migration' plugin. 😀

[@wiseguyfittness]

Great video, i was missing two key steps and your video helped me. Thanks so much.

[@nevillevanjaarsveld4708]

Worked perfectly! Couldn't have done it without you. Thanks!

[@CariOG]

I've been trying to migrate my website manually for the last 3 days and was close to getting a depression 🤣 I actually started my last attempt on doing it myself with this video and it finally worked out. Thank you so much for this super straightforward tutorial!

[@JoshHallco]

Heck yeah @CariOG glad to hear it finally worked! The most devastating points in my journey as a web designer were related to website migrations or email blow ups so I'm glad to hear this one prevented going to a dark place! ha

[@aftd2012]

Thank you so much. This literally works and the best. Those plugins available only making things doesnt work. Thanks Josh, life saver.

[@micky3010]

Happy 2021 migrator here. Hands down the best manual migration tutorial I've seen. Cheers! :)

[@whitedobie]

This is an amazingly helpful tutorial. I could not even find anything close to this useful on any reputable host companies sites. It works in 2021 too. The clean up at the end is unnecessary if you do not change the site name too. Please do an updated version so we never lose this online!

[@JoshHallco]

I'll do an updated version eventually if need be but luckily, the beauty of this tutorial is I do things the EXACT same way almost 4 years later :)

[@michaeldroberts]

FANTASTIC!!! Wow - you saved me so much time. Perfect instructions, great cadence with no BS! Thank you Thank you!!

[@jacobmwaipopo9961]

I have never seen before, this guy need a heaven protection........ you saved my day! God bless you 1000 times