Written by Admin on 2025-05-06

How to Download a WordPress Site and Edit Locally

Are you looking to work on your WordPress site locally without making changes live on your site? With the right tools, you can create a copy of your site to edit locally. This allows you to make changes and see how they look before publishing them to your live site. In this article, we’ll go over how to download your WordPress site and edit it locally using a few simple steps.

Prerequisites

Before we dive into the steps to download your WordPress site, there are a few things you'll need:

• A local development environment (e.g. MAMP, WAMP, XAMPP, etc.)
• FTP (File Transfer Protocol) credentials or access to your site’s files
• A text editor (e.g. Sublime Text, Atom, Visual Studio Code, etc.)

Step 1: Back Up Your Site

Before making any changes to your site, it’s important to create a backup in case anything goes wrong. This way, you can easily restore your site to its original state.

To create a backup of your WordPress site, you can use a plugin such as UpdraftPlus. Install and activate the plugin, then follow the prompts to create a backup of your entire site.

Step 2: Download Site Files and Database

The next step is to download your site files and database. To do this, you’ll need FTP access to your site’s files. Use an FTP client such as FileZilla to connect to your site and download the following:

• wp-content (folder containing all your site’s media, themes, and plugins)
• wp-config.php (file that contains your site’s database credentials)
• .htaccess (file that contains your site’s server configuration)
• Export your site’s database using phpMyAdmin or the WP Migrate DB plugin

Save these files and database backup in a folder on your local machine.

Step 3: Set Up a Local Development Environment

To work on your site locally, you’ll need to set up a local development environment. A development environment allows you to create a server environment on your computer, which will allow you to run your site as if it’s live on the web.

To set up a local development environment, you can use a tool like MAMP, WAMP, or XAMPP. Follow the installation instructions for your operating system to install the software on your computer.

Step 4: Create a New Database

You’ll need a new database on your local machine to import your site’s database backup. Access phpMyAdmin through your local development environment to create a new database. Name it the same as your site’s live database and set the encoding to utf8mb4generalci.

Step 5: Import Database Backup

Next, you’ll need to import your site’s database backup into the new local database you just created. Access your local development environment’s phpMyAdmin and locate the Import tab. Then, upload your database backup file and click Go.

Step 6: Edit wp-config.php File

Now that you’ve imported your site’s database to your local development environment, you need to edit the wp-config.php file you downloaded. Replace the database credentials of your live site with the information for your local development environment.

For example:

define( 'DB_NAME', 'your-local-db-name' ); define( 'DB_USER', 'local-username' ); define( 'DB_PASSWORD', 'local-password' ); define( 'DB_HOST', 'localhost' );

Step 7: Copy Site Files to Local Environment

The final step is to copy your site’s files to your local development environment. Navigate to the folder containing your site files, and copy the contents of the wp-content folder to the wp-content folder on your local development environment.

Conclusion

Now that you’ve downloaded your site and set up a local development environment, you can edit your site locally, test changes, and make sure everything looks good before pushing those changes live. Just remember to always create a backup of your site before doing any editing, even on a local environment.