By wordpressdotorg

January 16, 2024

WordPress Importer Plugin

Import posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, tags and more from a WordPress export file.

The WordPress Importer will import the following content from a WordPress export file:

Posts, pages and other custom post types
Comments and comment meta
Custom fields and post meta
Categories, tags and terms from custom taxonomies and term meta
Authors

For further information and instructions please see the documention on Importing Content.

Filters

The importer has a couple of filters to allow you to completely enable/block certain features:

import_allow_create_users: return false if you only want to allow mapping to existing users
import_allow_fetch_attachments: return false if you do not wish to allow importing and downloading of attachments
import_attachment_size_limit: return an integer value for the maximum file size in bytes to save (default is 0, which is unlimited)

There are also a few actions available to hook into:

import_start: occurs after the export file has been uploaded and author import settings have been chosen
import_end: called after the last output from the importer

Installation

The quickest method for installing the importer is:

Visit Tools -> Import in the WordPress dashboard
Click on the WordPress link in the list of importers
Click “Install Now”
Finally click “Activate Plugin & Run Importer”

If you would prefer to do things manually then follow these instructions:

Upload the wordpress-importer folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
Go to the Tools -> Import screen, click on WordPress

FAQ

Help! I’m getting out of memory errors or a blank screen.

If your exported file is very large, the import script may run into your host’s configured memory limit for PHP.

A message like “Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted” indicates that the script can’t successfully import your XML file under the current PHP memory limit. If you have access to the php.ini file, you can manually increase the limit; if you do not (your WordPress installation is hosted on a shared server, for instance), you might have to break your exported XML file into several smaller pieces and run the import script one at a time.

For those with shared hosting, the best alternative may be to consult hosting support to determine the safest approach for running the import. A host may be willing to temporarily lift the memory limit and/or run the process directly from their end.

— Support Article: Importing Content

Changelog

0.8.2

Update compatibility tested-up-to to WordPress 6.4.2.
Update doc URL references.
Adjust workflow triggers.

0.8.1

Update compatibility tested-up-to to WordPress 6.2.
Update paths to build status badges.

0.8

Update minimum WordPress requirement to 5.2.
Update minimum PHP requirement to 5.6.
Update compatibility tested-up-to to WordPress 6.1.
PHP 8.0, 8.1, and 8.2 compatibility fixes.
Fix a bug causing blank lines in content to be ignored when using the Regex Parser.
Fix a bug resulting in a PHP fatal error when IMPORT_DEBUG is enabled and a category creation error occurs.
Improved Unit testing & automated testing.

0.7

Update minimum WordPress requirement to 3.7 and ensure compatibility with PHP 7.4.
Fix bug that caused not importing term meta.
Fix bug that caused slashes to be stripped from imported meta data.
Fix bug that prevented import of serialized meta data.
Fix file size check after download of remote files with HTTP compression enabled.
Improve accessibility of form fields by adding missing labels.
Improve imports for remote file URLs without name and/or extension.
Add support for wp:base_blog_url field to allow importing multiple files with WP-CLI.
Add support for term meta parsing when using the regular expressions or XML parser.
Developers: All PHP classes have been moved into their own files.
Developers: Allow to change IMPORT_DEBUG via wp-config.php and change default value to the value of WP_DEBUG.

0.6.4

Improve PHP7 compatibility.
Fix bug that caused slashes to be stripped from imported comments.
Fix for various deprecation notices including wp_get_http() and screen_icon().
Fix for importing export files with multiline term meta data.

0.6.3

Add support for import term metadata.
Fix bug that caused slashes to be stripped from imported content.
Fix bug that caused characters to be stripped inside of CDATA in some cases.
Fix PHP notices.

0.6.2

Add wp_import_existing_post filter, see Trac ticket #33721.

0.6

Support for WXR 1.2 and multiple CDATA sections
Post aren’t duplicates if their post_type’s are different

0.5.2

Double check that the uploaded export file exists before processing it. This prevents incorrect error messages when
an export file is uploaded to a server with bad permissions and WordPress 3.3 or 3.3.1 is being used.

0.5

Import comment meta (requires export from WordPress 3.2)
Minor bugfixes and enhancements

0.4

Map comment user_id where possible
Import attachments from wp:attachment_url
Upload attachments to correct directory
Remap resized image URLs correctly

0.3

Use an XML Parser if possible
Proper import support for nav menus
… and much more, see Trac ticket #15197

0.1

Initial release