Migrate Your WordPress Site to Another Host

This article explains how to back up and migrate your WordPress website with WP Staging Pro.

This backup feature can migrate and copy your entire WordPress website to another domain, new host, or new server, and often faster and more reliable than with any other existing plugin.

You can even use the WP Staging backup feature to migrate your staging site to live!

That is a very robust, high-speed feature, even for huge sites.

How to Migrate WordPress to a New Host

Check out the video below if you’d rather watch a video than read the article. It explains all the steps on how to migrate WordPress to a new host:

Create a Backup of Your WordPress Website

Important: If you want to migrate a WordPress multisite to another host that has a different domain structure, e.g. Domain versus Subdomain, you need to customize the target domains with filters. This is explained in this article!

Let’s start.

First, open the WP STAGING | PRO plugin and click the “Backup & Restore” button.

Migrate Your WordPress Site to another domain or host by using WP STAGING Backup
Backup & Restore Butt

Click on “Create new Backup.

Migrate Your WordPress Site to another domain by using WP STAGING Backup | Create New Backup Button
Create New Backup Button

Optionally, you can set up here a name for the backup. Keep all checkboxes selected to make a full site backup.

Transfer WordPress Site to Another Host
Set up a Name for the Backup

Now click on “Start Backup.

Start the Backup Process
Start the Backup Process

Once the backup is ready, you’ll see the message Backup Complete.

WordPress Backup Completed
Backup Completed

Download the Backup File

Click on Actions and Download.

Download the Backup
Download the Backup

That will download the entire website packed in one file with the extension “.wpstg.”

The Backup File with the Extension ".wpstg"
The Backup File with the Extension “.wpstg.”

Upload the Backup File to the New Host

The only requirement for the next step is to have WordPress already installed on the destination host to migrate your website. That can be a new WordPress site from scratch or another website you want to make identical to the source website.

If you don’t have WordPress installed, you can use the WP Staging | Restore standalone script. This script can install WordPress from scratch on a new blank host. It is available if you have a WP Staging Pro license. Read more about it.

Go to WP Staging Pro and click the “Backup” menu.

Backup & Migration Button
Backup & Restore Butt

Click on “Upload Backup.

Upload Backup Button
Upload Backup Button

Select the backup from your local computer and upload it.

Select the WP STAGING Backup File
Select the WP STAGING Backup File

Optionally you can upload the backup file via FTP by uploading the backup to the folder
/wp-content/uploads/wp-staging/backups/

Restore the Backup File

Once the backup is uploaded, click Actions > Restore, Next, and Restore.

Restore Button
Click on “Restore”

The restore process will take a few minutes, depending on the backup file size. Once it is ready, you will see the finished modal.

Backup Restored Successfully
Backup Restored Successfully

After clicking on OK, WordPress redirects you to the login screen. Enter the username and password of the source website.

The Login Screen
The Login Screen

That’s it. With the help of WP Staging Pro, you have migrated the entire website to another server.

Updated on November 29, 2024