Maybe you don’t have staging, and you need to clone your WooCommerce website elsewhere to test updates or new functionality (because you’re not doing that on a live website, right?). Maybe you need to migrate an existing WooCommerce website to another server. Or, like me, maybe you need to copy an entire WooCommerce website on a fresh subdomain in order to write this step-by-step tutorial!
Either way, the free Duplicator plugin, available on the official WordPress.org repository, is your best friend. Whether you need to duplicate, clone, migrate, copy or even backup your WooCommerce website, Duplicator is the most straight forward system to achieve that.
Of course, is not super simple and this is why you’re reading this step-by-step tutorial about duplicating WooCommerce websites (including helpful screenshots). Hope this is helpful to those of you who need to achieve a complex and delicate operation (cloning/migrating is ALWAYS a delicate thing) within few steps.
All you need is an existing WooCommerce website, the Duplicator plugin, an FTP client (or File Manager) and access to the server where you will create the new subdomain and blank database. All the rest is handled by the plugin, so here’s the tutorial you were waiting for.
Select your existing WooCommerce install you want to clone, and add and activate the Duplicator plugin.
2. Existing WooCommerce Website: Create a new package
Go to Duplicator and click on “Create New” package.
3. Existing WooCommerce Website: Set up the new package
Set the package name if you want, then decide if you want to exclude certain files from the clone. For example, ZIP files. Or PDF files. Or even all your images, so the process will be much faster.
4. Existing WooCommerce Website: Scan the new package
When you move to the Scan step, the system will give you warnings if the package is too big in size or if there are other errors. In case you can go back to the Setup step and add more file exclusions.
5. Existing WooCommerce Website: Build the new package
When you proceed to the “Build” step, Duplicator will slowly backup your existing WooCommerce website and will generate two files: an ARCHIVE file containing website files and database, and an INSTALLER file necessary to clone the website elsewhere.
6. Download the package
Now go ahead and download the INSTALLER and ARCHIVE files on your computer. We’ll need them later to create the website clone.
7. Hosting: Create a new subdomain
From your hosting control panel, create a new subdomain where you wish to place your WooCommerce clone. You’ll need FTP access to this folder later.
8. Hosting: Create a new database
From your hosting control panel, create a new MySQL database through the wizard. You will need to set a database name, a database user and a database password. You’ll need these at step 11.
9. FTP: Place package in the subdomain folder
With an FTP software, place the INSTALLER and ARCHIVE files inside your subdomain folder. It should be empty i.e. there should not be another WordPress install or such.
10. Run the installer
Now open your browser and go to https://SUBDOMAIN_URL/installer.php. If you’ve placed the installer in the correct folder, Duplicator will display Step 1 and “Setup” and “Validation” will show a “Pass” badge.
11. Set up the installer
This is the most difficult and more “technical” step of the cloning process. Earlier, we created a database so you should have the database name, user and password available already and you can enter them in the relative input fields. The most complex input field is the “Host” one, but not that much really. It’s basically your hosting control panel “Main Domain”. If not sure, ask your host.
12. Review the installer setup
On step 3, simply review the “Setup” window, and make sure title, URL and path are correct. Title will be taken from the original website, URL should be the URL of your NEW WooCommerce clone. Then click on Next.
13. New WooCommerce Website: login
That’s it – easy peasy! You can now login to the cloned site and verify everything is working properly. Of course, you can login with the same credentials you use for the existing WooCommerce website.
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Rodolfo Melogli
Business Bloomer Founder
Author, WooCommerce expert and WordCamp speaker, Rodolfo has worked as an independent WooCommerce freelancer since 2011. His goal is to help entrepreneurs and developers overcome their WooCommerce nightmares. Rodolfo loves travelling, chasing tennis & soccer balls and, of course, wood fired oven pizza. Follow @rmelogli
12 thoughts on “WooCommerce: How to Clone/Migrate (Step by Step)?”
Kelvin
It is a good tutorial but I want to know how if my WooCommerce has over 10GB of data, I think it includes all other plugins, it takes me a very long time to do the clone from site A to site B. What is the best strategy to make a clone site if WooCommerce must be installed on the self-hosted server?
I have a question. What would be the best way to take my .COM woocommerce store and advertise my products on my .TV website? I would like to keep my .COM store as the main store. Basically just want to advertise it to possibly sending them to the original store. Thank you.
If the .COM store is a WooCommerce website, you import products as “external”. If not, you can simply embed them by posting the product URL on the .TV, and that should generate a product preview. Hope this helps
I got a .COM Site with WooCommerce, Subscriptions & Bookings (which is now very slow).
Well, i’m not sure if it is a good idea, but:
Now i want to create a new .SHOP Domain with only the WC Stuff.
So i can recreate the .COM new and it will be clean/fresh.
My Question is:
How can i move “only” all the WooCommerce Stuff (from .COM to this new .SHOP-Domain/Site)?
Hi, thanks for an excellent tutorial. I’ve recently migrated my store to WooCommerce from Magento since it no longer receives updates from the company. Wanted to do it by myself – but something went wrong in the process and not all of the data was transferred correctly. The coupon codes weren’t transferred at all. I’m not that good at coding. So I ended up using the Cart2Cart service.
I also have been using this plug-in since about v1.0.4
there are two parts you may have missed, in Step3 where the Update data path url is shown – check to see if its correct, you can click on the “get”link to active. https://imgur.com/7OcxHvK
in Step3 under the options link – it will open a section where you can “Scan options” ideally you should check the Database Full Search Mode to have it populate ALL links in the DB – it will find all the little obscure paths and correct them
*All this works for me, and, I’ve been using this to migrate ALL my site builds.
It is a good tutorial but I want to know how if my WooCommerce has over 10GB of data, I think it includes all other plugins, it takes me a very long time to do the clone from site A to site B. What is the best strategy to make a clone site if WooCommerce must be installed on the self-hosted server?
At point 3 you can exclude files, plugins, folders, etc.
I have a question. What would be the best way to take my .COM woocommerce store and advertise my products on my .TV website? I would like to keep my .COM store as the main store. Basically just want to advertise it to possibly sending them to the original store. Thank you.
If the .COM store is a WooCommerce website, you import products as “external”. If not, you can simply embed them by posting the product URL on the .TV, and that should generate a product preview. Hope this helps
Hi Rodolfo
I got a .COM Site with WooCommerce, Subscriptions & Bookings (which is now very slow).
Well, i’m not sure if it is a good idea, but:
Now i want to create a new .SHOP Domain with only the WC Stuff.
So i can recreate the .COM new and it will be clean/fresh.
My Question is:
How can i move “only” all the WooCommerce Stuff (from .COM to this new .SHOP-Domain/Site)?
Thanx a lot for any Idea
Reinhard
BTW: Can’t wait for the Back Friday 😉
Not easy… but can you not move the whole website and then delete what you don’t need?
Hi, thanks for an excellent tutorial. I’ve recently migrated my store to WooCommerce from Magento since it no longer receives updates from the company. Wanted to do it by myself – but something went wrong in the process and not all of the data was transferred correctly. The coupon codes weren’t transferred at all. I’m not that good at coding. So I ended up using the Cart2Cart service.
I see
I also have been using this plug-in since about v1.0.4
there are two parts you may have missed, in Step3 where the Update data path url is shown – check to see if its correct, you can click on the “get”link to active.
https://imgur.com/7OcxHvK
in Step3 under the options link – it will open a section where you can “Scan options” ideally you should check the Database Full Search Mode to have it populate ALL links in the DB – it will find all the little obscure paths and correct them
*All this works for me, and, I’ve been using this to migrate ALL my site builds.
Fantastic, thank you!
https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-wp-migration/
this plugin also does the job,i have been using this to plugin to clone/migrate woocommerce site from long time
Cool, thank you!