I have a running site (Site A).

I want to re-write the site fully to improve everything but, when I'm finished, I don't want to have to get everyone to sign up to the new site.

I wondered if I could create an entirely new site on a different domain (Site B) with a clean install of Wordpress - and then when I'm finished developing the site copy over the following tables from Site A to Site B: wp_options wp_users wp_usermeta

And would all my existing users then have full access to Site B (the new site) ?

Or is there more to it than this?

Thanks

I have a running site (Site A).

I want to re-write the site fully to improve everything but, when I'm finished, I don't want to have to get everyone to sign up to the new site.

I wondered if I could create an entirely new site on a different domain (Site B) with a clean install of Wordpress - and then when I'm finished developing the site copy over the following tables from Site A to Site B: wp_options wp_users wp_usermeta

And would all my existing users then have full access to Site B (the new site) ?

Or is there more to it than this?

Thanks

• users
• domain

• 1 1st option - Users will able to access the new site because you migrate wp_users table. But as it's a different domain, you'll need to configure home_url and site_url under "wp_options" table. 2nd option, you can just duplicates those tables in a same database with a new "prefix" and connect from a new domain. – Ronald Commented Jul 12, 2018 at 15:40

3 Answers 3

Migrate DB Pro can help with this, make sure to migrate any plugin tables and the WP_Users and WP_Usermeta tables if your users make posts and you want that content to remain assigned an available make sure to keep WP_Posts and WP_Postmeta table as well.

https://deliciousbrains/wp-migrate-db-pro/

Also keep in mind that WP uses an EAV (Entity Attribute Value) architecture for pretty much everything User and Content related so if you have a ton of users it will take time or possibly crash.

I run a site with 100K registered users and I have no problems with this process using MigrateDBPro but I know that larger sites would have problems.

There are several plugins that will export to a CSV file, then import from that file. Your choice on which one to use. Just search via the Add Plugins screen.

In general, you can export the tables and import into new database. Of course you need to set proper domain in wp_options table. Or you can use migration plugins.