How to create a local copy of a wordpress site

4/15/2014 How to create a local copyof a wordpress site
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How to create a local copy of a wordpress site
Monday May 12th 2008
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This article explains how you set up a copy of a WordPress site on your computer. This can be very useful if you
need to find out what will happen if you do an upgrade, for testing out and playing with plug ins, and for
developing WordPress themes.
This article is aimed at PC owners. I use both PC and Mac, and this time I had to do this task on my PC. The
principles can also be applied to a Mac, and I have already written a group of articles for Mac which will be
linked to from this article that achieve the same results.
We’ll be going through the following steps:
Installing PHP, MySQL and Apache on a PC to form the ‘local host’
Copying the WordPress install over from your remote host
Copying the database
Here we go…
Installing PHP, MySQL and Apache
Mac users
Go to my tutorial on setting up PHP, MySQL and Apache on a Mac.
PC users
There are many packages available that allow a one click installation of PHP, MySQL and Apache on a PC. I
looked at a few and settled for WAMP, as its kept up to date, is relatively lightweight and easy to use.
1. Start by downloading WAMP.
2. Run through the installation, accepting the defaults.
3. You should now see a new icon in your taskbar – that’s WAMP! If you don’t see it, just start the
software by clicking on the icon, or locating it in your programs.
4. Start your webserver by left clicking on the icon in the taskbar, and selecting Start All Services. Nothing
will happen – the services run behind the scenes.
5. Open a browser and go to http://localhost/, if you see the WampServer homepage then you’re ready to

start setting up wordpress.
Copying the WordPress install over from your remote host
Next you are going to download WordPress from your remote host and set it up as a local site.
1. Using your preferred FTP client (I use the excellent free filezilla) download all the files in and including the
folder associated with your WordPress install. If your WordPress is in a folder called ‘wordpress’, you
need to download the whole folder.
2. Place the downloaded folder into the WAMP folder www. This is where all files to be run on the
webserver need to be placed. This can be found by clicking the WAMP icon and selecting the ‘www’
directory option. Its also in C:/wamp/www
3. Once the downloads are complete, go to http://localhost/the_name_of_your_wordpress_folder, you
should see a database error. If you do, its all worked! If you see a server error, its likely to be your
.htaccess file – try removing it temporarily.
Copying the database
Now you need to get all the tables associated with WordPress out of the remote server, and onto the local
server. You’ll probably need to use PHP MyAdmin, which most hosts include by default. If this isn’t available
and your using a version of WordPress which is later than 2.0.3 you can try the wordpress db backup plugin.
1. Log in to PhpMyAdmin
2. Select the database containing your WordPress tables, note down its name
3. Select the Export Option
4. Select all the tables related to this WordPress installation
5. Ensure you download as SQL, check the Data box, so all data is downloaded – complete and extended
inserts. Check the box so you save as file and select no compression (it sometimes goes wrong).
Next you need to import this data into phpMyAdmin on your local WAMP server.
1. Start PhpMyAdmin by clicking on the WAMP icon and selecting the option phpMyAdmin
2. On the homepage there is an option called ‘Create New Database’, enter the name of the database from
your remote server and click create.
3. Click on your newly created database in the left hand column.
4. Click import and browse to your downloaded file
5. Click ‘go’ and all the data should be imported
6. If you have problems with the size of your datafile, there are other methods – send me a mail, or add a
comment and I’ll go into them. At the moment I’m trying to keep this document as simple as I can.
Next you need to set up the same username and password on this local database as is used on your remote
database. You will have used these to log in to phpMyAdmin on your remote server, they are also in your
wp_config file.
1. Go to the homepage of the local phpMyAdmin and select ‘Privileges’
2. Click the add a new user option

3. Under username enter the username from the remote host, under host select localhost, under password
and re-type enter the password from the remote host. Under privileges check all. Click go.
A note on user permissions – I had some issues with the host type – basically, in the wp-config file you need to
check the DB_HOST entry. If the host is ‘localhost’ the user in the local mySQL should be set to host –
localhost. If the host is ’127.0.0.1′ the user should be set to host – any.
Finally, you need to change a couple of fields inside the wordpress database to ensure the correct web address
is used.
1. Go to the local phpMyAdmin
2. Select the database containing wordpress
3. Select the table wp_options
4. Select browse
5. Locate the option ‘siteurl’ and edit it so the option_value becomes http://localhost/local_folder_name
6. Locate the option ‘home’ and edit it so the option_value becomes http://localhost/local_folder_name (this
might be on the second page of database fields).
And you should now be done check http://localhost/local_folder_name.
Whats Next
Keep an eye out for many more WordPress tutorials over the coming weeks. I’m currently freelancing and am
working on a bunch of WordPress sites for various people, as well as working on some open source themes,
premium themes and plug-ins. Email me if you need any assistance – kirby [dot] mark [at] gmail [dot] com.
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• Reply •
Beri • 3 years ago
Great guideline, many thanks!!
I did have a problem though. The homepage was showing correctly on localhost, but clicking on
any post or page resulted in an 'cannot find url' error. I finally found out how to resolve it:
Go to http://localhost/portal/wp-admin/options-permalink.php and change the setting to default.
4
Lee • 10 months ago
Hi - I did all this, but for some reasons, when I try to access my site, I get a pop up that says "
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• Reply •
Hi - I did all this, but for some reasons, when I try to access my site, I get a pop up that says "
1
• Reply •
Ratul • 2 years ago
Hi Mark,
it works great. But I still have problems updating wordpress version offline, it shows the error:
Downloading update from http://wordpress.org/wordpress...
Download failed.: Could not open handle for fopen() to http://wordpress.org/wordpress...
Installation Failed
Do you have any solution how to only download the updated file to an earlier version thats
running in localhost?
1
• Reply •
Stephen • a month ago
Hi, I just wanted to thank you for this excellent tutorial on how to install a development copy of a
production Wordpress site. The only problem I had was with displaying subordinate pages, but
once I changed the permalink option to "default" that worked fine. Also the SEO plugin did not
like being moved to the local site.
• Reply •
Lee • 10 months ago
ooops - here it is
• Reply •
Walter • a year ago
Please help.
Under the table wp_options. I cannot find the "home". Please show me where else can I look
for.
Thanks
• Reply •
Jasmin Shah • 10 months agoWalter
Go to page 2, You'll find it there :-)
darren • a year ago
Hi Mark,
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• Reply •
Hi Mark,
I followed the steps in the first part but it seems there are problems with the size of the imported
database. I am receiving this error:
"No data was received to import. Either no file name was submitted, or the file size exceeded
the maximum size permitted by your PHP configuration."
What would you suggest? Help would be greatly appreciated!
• Reply •
Julian • 4 months agodarren
I found the info below at this link and it solved this problem for me. -
http://forum.wampserver.com/re...
Try these different settings in C:wampbinapacheapache2.2.8binphp.ini
Find:
post_max_size = 8M
upload_max_filesize = 2M
max_execution_time = 30
max_input_time = 60
memory_limit = 8M
Change to:
post_max_size = 750M
upload_max_filesize = 750M
max_execution_time = 5000
max_input_time = 5000
memory_limit = 1000M
Then restart wamp to take effect
Have fun,
• Reply •
Veeps • a year ago
I'm having a problem that I think is password related, though I could be wrong. I got as far as
seeing an "Error establishing database connection" message. If the password is encrypted (in
the wp_config file), say as "xyz123*", but I know that password is "passwordx" - which do I use
in phpMyAdmin under privileges? Encrypted or actual password? Thanks in advance.
• Reply •
Josh H • 3 months agoVeeps
Hi Veeps did you ever get past that error?
I have the same error. Ive searched high and low and I cant get past it.
jared • 2 years ago
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• Reply •
jared • 2 years ago
fyi if your db is too large then you can create an .htaccess file in the /phpmyadmin directory to
override settings:
1.in /phpmyadmin directory, create an .htaccess file.
2. type the following in the newly-created .htaccess file:
php_value post_max_size 21M
php_value upload_max_filesize 20M
and then change the 21M/20M to whatever you need. make sure the post_max_size is as big or
bigger than the upload_max_filesize.
thanks for the tutorial!
• Reply •
Jose • 2 years ago
Developing in a test environment is alyaws the best way. You should never run untested code in
production. I actually run a QA site as well on a shared host service so I can test deployments
and ensure that it all works on a shared host. WP adds some extra twists when you deploy, like
having to change all the URL's in the database. MAMP is unnecessary. It looks easy at first, but
installs thing in odd ways. The Mac comes with PHP and Apache already installed, all you need
to do is install MySQL and you are ready to go. If all you ever use is PHP, MAMP may be good
enough, just don't try to install Python on it. I tried, after 4 hours of unproductive messing around
in Unix mode I gave up, uninstalled MAMP and went with the standard Mac services.
• Reply •
andonisr • 2 months agoJose
Hey there...when you say "The Mac comes with PHP and Apache already installed", you
mean....?? Where is it installed...how do you access it ? I went through hell to try and
configure MAMP on my mac, and after countless hours of experimentation with local
install of wp I finally got it working. Now I'm used to it and can play around with it, (mostly
using phpmyadmin sections of it..! However, it would be good if you can tell me where is
installed and does that mean I now have it installed twice...?
Thank you..
• Reply •
David • 2 years ago
I cannot begin to tell you how helpful this walk through has been. Thank you *so* much for doing
this.
• Reply •
Matt • 2 years ago
This saved me a lot of trouble. Thanks very much!
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Etienne Sky • 2 years ago
Thanks Mark, this is straight forward and it succeeded in bringing my wordpress site up locally,
at least the content.
Unfortunately I don't get the theme to load correctly. I do have a copy in the
wordpress/wb_content/themes folder but it does not seem to get picked up. Would you know
where the theme is selected and what I might be missing ?
thanks
• Reply •
Winwood • 2 years ago
Helped me get my localhost copy up and running after a f]very frustrating few hours. Thanks :)
• Reply •
Fabrice • 2 years ago
Thank you so much for this tutorial. Great great stuff!
• Reply •
Ramon • 3 years ago
Hi! I have followed all the steps and the main page loads at http://localhost.
However, when I click on any post or page, all I get are "Not found" errors.
I have the Permalinks plugin by John Bloch installed and this is what is causing the problem. I
changed the Permalink settings to default and now I can browse.
However, this is not satisfactory since I do need to use the Permalinks once I'm done working
on http://localhost and implement the changes to the live site.
Can you or anyone here point me to the right direction on how to make permalinks work on
http://localhost?
• Reply •
Damian Saunders • 3 years ago
Hi Mark,
Thanks so much, I'd been frustrated with this for a while now and other tutorials don't cover the
php Admin steps like you did.
Still have a couple of glitches with images using fully qualified URLs etc but there's enough to
develop and test.
Cheers
Damian
http://www.damiansaunders.net
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• Reply •
darkhoro • 3 years ago
OHH MAANNN thanks a lot, you helped me a lot !
P.S : for people who use easyphp, put http://127.0.0.1:8888/folder_name in siteurl and home.
• Reply •
Takis Vakatasis • 3 years ago
hello Mark
thank you so much for this detailed step by step guide.....i follow your steps and finally i made
my wordpress theme working locally (my site is: www.judo.com.gr)
Best Regards
Takis
• Reply •
sara • 3 years ago
Excellent write-up. I have problems when trying to import my database as the file is too big.
How can I get around this issue?
Many thanks
• Reply •
milesj • 4 years ago
Seemed so simple, however, when I followed all the steps and went to URL
localhost:8888/wordpress (I'm running MAMP), the browser window is just blank. Similarly if I go
to wp-login.php and login the screen browser remains blank.
• Reply •
Ryan Erwin • 4 years ago
Some people would prefer not update the database content every time they copy the database
from Live back to their local system for development.
The WordPress Developer Site has some documentation on patching the wp-
includes/functions.php file to avoid any SQL changes when reloading the database.
Running a Development Copy of WordPress at codex.developer.com.
---
Ryan Erwin
Shanghai, China
Warren • 4 years ago
Thanks Mark!
Been looking everywhere and this is the first place mentioning the changes for the siteurl and
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• Reply •
Been looking everywhere and this is the first place mentioning the changes for the siteurl and
home. And that did it!
• Reply •
Michael Soriano • 4 years ago
thank you for this. very clear and easy to follow.
• Reply •
Marcela • 4 years ago
Thank you so much for your tutorial. I was able to set up everything with no problems. I still have
some glitches to solve but at least I now have a local copy of my site to play around with.
This was great help
• Reply •
Lynn • 5 years ago
Kudos to you, Mark! This is the best explanation (and I took a good look at several) and the only
trouble I had was just discovering (thanks to the Demers Designs comment) that I needed to
set the permalinks to the default.
Brilliant! Now I can demo a blog for an organization that won't have an internet connection for
our meeting.
• Reply •
eggplant64 • 5 years ago
Amazing! I've been having such a headache with this and then came across this page.
Completely resolved all the issues I was having. Thanks you!
• Reply •
Dave • 5 years ago
Thanks for the complete and easy to follow guide, now I have a working localhost and time to
modify my templates. Thanks for this great guide! Keep it up :)
• Reply •
Demers Designs • 5 years ago
Great write up. I would like to add one more step that may or may not be necessary. If you are
using a custom permalink structure, your links to individual posts and categories may not work
when you bring your site to a local server. I have found that if you switch the permalinks back to
default, save, and then go back to your custom settings, it should work fine. I assume it is
something about the .htaccess file not copying from the live server. Hope this helps someone...
John • 5 years ago
A note on user permissions - I had some issues with the host type - basically, in the wp-config
file you need to check the DB_HOST entry. If the host is ‘localhost’ the user in the local mySQL
should be set to host - localhost. If the host is ‘127.0.0.1? the user should be set to host - any.
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• Reply •
should be set to host - localhost. If the host is ‘127.0.0.1? the user should be set to host - any.
Sir, could you explain what the above text means?
• Reply •
Browser Media • 6 years ago
Just wanted to say thank you for a superb summary of this process. I am just about to update
our site (built on wordpress but not touched for a couple of years and long overdue an overhaul)
and wanted to set up a local environment. Very useful article and much appreciated!
• Reply •
chris • 6 years ago
so frustrated...i've changed my 'siteurl' and 'home'; however, when i navigate to my site on
localhost i get a 404 not found error...
the odd thing is it points to the .com address of the live site, but the folder name on
localhost...obviously, i've done something wrong...but i can't fathom what...
any ideas?
• Reply •
liam • 6 years ago
Nice one man, think I might give this a try. Nice work!
• Reply •
inspirationbit • 6 years ago
Thanks so much for this post, Mark. I didn't know about the last part with the changes for the
siteurl and home, and these are so important.
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