Export to Own WordPress-Powered Site – please warn that it’s impossible

justinbaeder · Member · Apr 21, 2006 at 6:21 am
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I know this has been covered numerous times here, but many people have asked me how to move from their wordpress.com site to their own WordPress installation on a paid host. I am aware of the RSS export/import solution, but I don’t think most people are happy about losing their comments and other stuff.

I’m sure someone is working on a wordpress.com-to-WP script like Skeltoac’s excellent Blogger-to-WP script that is now part of WP2.0. Hopefully.

In the meantime, though, I really think you should tell people when they sign up that they can’t easily migrate to their own WordPress-powered site. It’s only reasonable to assume that if you can move from Blogger to WordPress, you should be able to move from WordPress MU to WordPress, and it’s very irritating to people when they find out they can’t.

The lack of a viable migration option from wordpress.com to WP really makes me hesitant to recommend wordpress.com to people. I’d rather they start with Blogger, then move to paid WP hosting if/when they are ready.

That’s my two cents. Thanks for listening.
wank · Member · Apr 21, 2006 at 2:24 pm
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I’ve written extensively about the need for an export function (you’re right; RSS is just a workaround, and it was never designed for this purpose), but you have to remember it was only in WP 2.0 that self-hosted users even got a database backup plugin added to the core. Before that they had to go hunting for plugins or delve into phpMyAdmin if they wanted to make a backup or move to another server. As for text or XML export, that remains a dim and distant dream. For whatever reason, export has never been a WordPress priority and I can’t see any signs of that changing.
dicidense · Member · Apr 22, 2006 at 9:45 am
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Agreed ! 100%

I’d like to move to a paid host and I’m stuck : it will be a pain to move everything.
drmike · Member · Apr 22, 2006 at 3:16 pm
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Matt and staff have commented that the export feature is something on their to do list.
itsme · Member · Apr 29, 2006 at 8:44 am
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cool. so any timeframe around which it’ll be available?
wank · Member · Apr 29, 2006 at 1:10 pm
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In the next month or so (my money is on ‘or so’)
jseliger · Member · May 11, 2006 at 11:11 pm
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I just registered and am hesitant to begin seriously using the free WordPress.com service precisely because of the backup issue.
drmike · Member · May 12, 2006 at 1:28 pm
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You can pull off a backup using RSS in some method. Just set it to export out all of your posts in quanity. Most of us that are active here in the forums are using this method.

Also remember that your data backed up as well.
matt · Staff · May 12, 2006 at 9:03 pm
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We have an import/export feature in testing in the WP core right now, and after the bugs get worked out we’ll turn it live here.
wank · Member · May 13, 2006 at 5:38 pm
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After the bugs get worked out? I thought finding bugs in the alphas was our job ;)
ericm · Member · Aug 23, 2006 at 9:44 am
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Agreed… With justin’s comments and I am also waiting on the beta or release availability to move from WP.com to my own hosted version of WP.
Thanks for keeping us up2date..
drmike · Member · Aug 23, 2006 at 4:54 pm
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Um, you do know that you’re posting to a 4 month old thread and we’ve had the export feature for at least 2 months, right?
wank · Member · Aug 23, 2006 at 6:47 pm
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We even have a plugin so you don’t have to wait for the next .org release.

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