Migrating from WP to WPMU

I spent some time the other day helping our ITRTs figure out how to install WPMU and then get their single user WordPress blogs imported into WPMU. I’ll probably make a video sooner or later as this is probably murder without images.

So here’s my shot at best practice advice in case you have to move a lot of blogs from WP to WPMU when you’re not the final end user and can’t screw up.

1. Go to your WPMU install and make a new blog. Make the url the same thing as your WP blog but add a 1 and the end (so if it the blog url is http://ego.com/loveme name this one loveme1). We’re doing this so you can import it in while leaving the original blog up until you’ve made sure everything worked the way you wanted. We’ll go over how to drop the 1 from the WPMU url later. The admin here will be whoever is the main user of the blog. You’ll have access no matter what as WPMU admin.

2. Got to your WP blog (the original one) and log in to the admin panel then choose tools>export. This will get all your content out1. Save it on your desktop or wherever in a folder with the same name as the blog. While you’re here check which theme is being used and note any plugins you’ll need to grab.

3. Using your FTP client of choice go to the original blog and then wp-content. Download the theme and needed plugins2 to the same folder where you saved the export file3

4. Upload your plugins and theme to the WPMU site.

5. Got to the admin portion of the WPMU site. Make extra sure you’re in the right blog. Look at the URL to double check. Then go to Tools>Import>WordPress and select the file you exported earlier. Make sure you check the import attachments and uploads option.

6. Now that it has run, check and make sure the content is there. If it is, proceed. If it isn’t, I’m not sure what’s up. Talk to me. Maybe we can figure it out.

7. Turn on the old theme (remember in WPMU you have to activate it as an admin before it’s available) and activate the required plugins.

8. Delete the old blog. Chances are, if you’re reading this, you installed it using Fantastico. If so, go to cPanel>Fantastico>WordPress and delete the blog.

9. Now return to WPMU and go the Site Admin>Blogs and click Edit on the blog you’re working on. Now under Path you can delete the 1 and click Update Options. You’re blog should now seamlessly replace the old blog.


1 It doesn’t get your blogroll. If you want that do this.

2 With some clients you can just open two windows and drag between them to save time but if things fail mid-transfer you’ll likely have some problems.

3 I’m assuming you’ll know the difference between the theme and plugins. If not, make two folders to help you keep that straight.

5 thoughts on “Migrating from WP to WPMU

  1. Excellent,

    Now let me ask you, is the WPMu on the same domain as the orginal? If so, ego.com/loveme would have a different file structure for uploaded images and files from the single to the Mu, no?

    For example, when I transferred the bava to wpmu, the uploaded files a inserted in posts like images and a few PDFs were placed in bavatuesdays.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/

    In WPMu, I think this changes to
    bavatuesdays.com/files/2009/09/

    So, in the exported WPMu file, you might need to do a quick find and replace in the SQL file you will be importing from this url if all the images don’t copy ove smoothly. I know in the import/export they allow you to copy uploaded files to the new instal, but I am wondering if it is solid—I was having issues with it a few times.

    If it is not, you would have to change something like this URL

    http://bavatuesdays.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/batman_clock-480×244.jpg

    to this
    http://bavatuesdays.com/files/2009/09/batman_clock-480×244.jpg

    So, in other words, I would find and replace everything in the database that was http://bavatuesdays.com/wp-content/uploads/
    with http://bavatuesdays.com/files/ if the original import doesn;t brining in the images and documents.

    1. If the old blog is up and in the same location (that’s why I do that mess with adding the 1 to the URL), when you hit import on the xml and click the box for uploads etc (not sure the exact wording) it sucks in all the images, files etc. and puts them in the new directory location. I then completely delete the old blog and it’s all good.

      This may be a more inefficient way to do it but I’m just trying to do it in the easiest way possible and avoid mySQL as much as possible.

  2. It was spammed by the way.

    I used to do this another ghetto way that also avoided mySQL but this is the easiest one I’ve found.

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