How To Copy Your WordPress Site To Your Local PC

Most WordPress developers and designers play around with plugins, themes and design on a local installation of WordPress.

You may also want to create a copy of your site as backup and store it on your local PC for safe keeping.

There’s different ways to backup WordPress and restore it locally which is what this video tutorial is about.

Lets take a look at the easiest and fastest way to create a backup copy of your site and bring it to life on your local computer.

Install Instant WP

The first step is to install WordPress on your local computer.

Login to your live site and go to Tools in your dashboard.

Use the export tool to create a copy of all you posts, pages. menu’s, categories and tags.

Import this XML file into your local WordPress installation.

Increase Max File Limits

By default, the max import/upload limits for XML files are set at 2mg.

If the export copy of your content is above this limit, you won’t be able to import the file into your local setup

To fix this problem, follow these simple steps to increase the max upload limits in instantwp.

Copy Theme

You might want to install exactly the same theme you have on your live site.

To do this simply download a copy of your parent and child theme to your local computer using FTP.

Plugins

You could also download exactly the same plugins you have installed on your live site.

Its probably faster to simply install the same plugins from your local installation. Because we’re not importing the database, the plugin settings won’t be saved so keep this in mind.

If you do want to install the exact same plugins with the exact same settings, you’ll need to export your database from phpMyAdmin and download your entire plugins folder using FTP.

Note: Large databases over 2mg may not import into your local WordPress setup unless you increase max upload/import sizes.

Uploads

All your images are stored in your uploads folder.

You can download these to your local PC and drag them into your wp-content folder if you like for backup. This is not needed if you simply wish to display them exactly the same as on your live WordPress site.

In this tutorial, i won’t be doing this because it takes a long time to copy image files. Your export file will contain the url’s to the images hosted on your live site which should display on your local installation of WordPress.

 Video Tutorial

Conclusion

• Its best to delete any posts, pages, categories and menu’s before you import your content to your local installation of WordPress.
• You may also consider installing an exact copy of your parent and child theme before importing your posts and pages.
• Installing exactly the same plugins is another option you may consider before importing your content.
• Try and import your menu’s and categories first rather than posts and pages separately otherwise you’ll need to create these from scratch again.

How about you?

Do you design your website on your local computer?