STEPS TO MIGRATE AWAY

WP Engine recommends the following workflow when copying your WP Engine site another hosting environment (for instance, copying to a local environment or another web host):

  1. First, create a backup within the User Portal.
  2. Once the backup is complete, you can select the backup from the list and click “Download Zip”.
  3. Once you receive the email containing your zip file, open the file and delete the following:
    • wp-content/mu-plugins/mu-plugin.php
    • wp-content/mu-plugins/wpengine-common/
    • wp-content/mu-plugins/slt-force-strong-passwords.php
    • wp-content/mu-plugins/force-strong-passwords/
    • wp-content/mu-plugins/stop-long-comments.php
    • wp-content/advanced-cache.php
    • wp-content/object-cache.php
  4. Then, you can upload the rest of your site’s files to your new environment
  5. Open the zip file and import the database found in wp-content/mysql.sql to your new environment. You will also want to retain a copy of this file on your local computer until you are confident all content was imported correctly.  After this is completed, remove this file from your server.
  6. Replace wp-config.php with the default WordPress template and be sure to include your new site’s database credentials. These can be found in MySQL on your new host, or local environment.
  7. (Optional) At this time, you may still need to run a search and replace on your database to update any remaining instances of your live domain or INSTALL.wpengine.com temporary address to your new or local host domain. You can use a search and replace plugin for this if needed.
  8. (Optional) If you have configured LargeFS for unlimited storage on your WP Engine environment, you will also need to download your files from Amazon S3 and upload them to your new web host. You can use the Download steps at the bottom of this article for instructions.
  9. Make sure that all folder permissions are set to 0755 and files to 0664

    1. - First cd to the addon-domain folder

      - Then use this "find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;"

    2. You will need SSH access to complete this task

Your site should be up and running on your new environment after following these steps!