This article explains how to download your whole site in an archive that installs on another WordPress. You will learn how to request the archive, download it, read its contents and put your site back online elsewhere.
Before you start
- Only the site’s owners export. An owner is an administrator whom the Lovely Render team designated as such when the site was opened or at your request. An administrator who is not an owner does not see the export section.
- You request the export from your Staging. The archive contains your Production, the site as your visitors see it.
- The archive installs on a blank WordPress version 7.1 or newer. Its tables must carry the prefix
wp_.
Request the archive
- In the admin menu of your Staging, open Settings.
- At the bottom of the page, in the Export the site section, click Export the site. A window opens for you to enter a code.
- Enter the code from your authentication app or one of your backup codes. Without two-step authentication, enter the six-digit code received in the email Confirm the export of your site.
- Click Confirm and prepare. The message Code accepted. The archive is being prepared. You will receive an email when it is ready. appears.
You can close the page while the archive is prepared. The code received by email expires after 15 minutes.
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| Incorrect code. Try again. | Enter the code again. |
| This code has expired. Close this window and click Export the site again. | Request a new code with the Export the site button. |
| Too many wrong codes. Your account is blocked for a while; try again later. | Wait before trying again. |
| A publication, a restoration or another export is in progress on this site. Try again once it has finished. | Only one operation runs at a time. Try again after the previous one ends. |
| The last publication of this site was interrupted. Publish the site again, then request the export. | Publish your site, then try again. |
Download the archive
- Open the email Your site export is ready. It gives the size of the archive and its deadline.
- Click Download the archive. The Your site export page opens on your Staging.
- Write down the username and password shown under The administrator account of the exported site.
- Click Download the archive.
The page only opens for the person who requested the export, logged in with their account. The link alone is not enough.
- The archive stays available for seven days, then it is deleted.
- A site has a single archive at a time. A new request, yours or another owner’s, replaces the previous one.
- The other owners receive the email Site exported: … when the archive is ready.
- If the preparation fails, you receive the email Your site export could not be prepared. Request a new export, then write to us if the failure repeats.
Read the contents of the archive
The archive is a zip file. Start with its README.md file: it describes each folder in your language and only names what your archive contains.
| File or folder | Content |
|---|---|
README.md | The archive’s user guide. |
database.sql | Your site’s database for WordPress, in the MySQL and MariaDB format: contents, templates, media library, categories and settings. |
uploads/ | Your media library, each file in its original folders. |
app/ | The files of your design: stylesheet, fonts, background images, icons, logos and sharing images. |
lovely-export/ | Your site’s WordPress theme, which the database designates as the active theme. |
forms/ | The requests from your forms, one CSV file per form. |
stats/ | Your analytics day by day in CSV files, without bots. A separate file counts the visits of search and AI bots. |
search/ | Google’s and Bing’s figures for your site, if their account is linked to it. |
data/ | Your data as Lovely Render kept it, in JSON: each content with the settings of its blocks, the revisions, the design system and the site settings. |
history.csv | Your site’s history. |
emails.csv | The emails sent by the site over the last 30 days, with the outcome of each. |
form-deliveries.csv | If a form sends its requests to another tool: each delivery and the tool’s response. |
legal/ | If your legal documents have been online: each edition, its dates and the visitors’ acceptances. |
indexnow.csv | The URLs the site sent to search engines. |
Your analytics cover the last 37 months. The archive contains no named visit, no visitor address and no key of the Google and Bing accounts linked to the site.
The archive does not contain the previous versions of the site, since it starts from Production. To take a version of the site with you, restore it in Production, then export. This restoration puts it back online for your visitors.
Know the structure of the files
Each CSV file starts with a header row. Analytics are counted per day, in universal time (UTC).
| File | Columns or content |
|---|---|
forms/<form>.csv | One row per request: its date, one column per form field and, if the form collects them, the consents. |
stats/visitors.csv | date, visitors, pageviews, avg_engaged_seconds |
stats/pages.csv | date, page, visitors, pageviews, avg_engaged_seconds, avg_scroll_depth |
stats/entry-pages.csv | date, page, entrances |
stats/sources.csv | date, source, medium, campaign, new_visitors |
stats/referrers.csv | date, referrer, pageviews |
stats/countries.csv, stats/browsers.csv, stats/operating-systems.csv | date, the value, visitors |
stats/touchpoints.csv | date, source, medium, campaign, touchpoints |
stats/attributions.csv | date, source, medium, campaign, pageviews |
stats/bots.csv | date, bot, category, page, crawls, document |
stats/crawls.csv | datetime, bot, category, device, page, status, document |
stats/markdown-reads.csv | date, page, door, reads |
stats/performance.csv | date, page, samples, ttfb_ms_p75, lcp_ms_p75, inp_ms_p75, cls_p75 |
search/ | Clicks, impressions and position, per day or per week, per page or per query and per device. |
history.csv | The date, category, who, what, on what, the details and the environment of each action. |
emails.csv | The date, category, recipient, reference and outcome of each email, with the response of the server that received it. |
form-deliveries.csv | The date, form, request, destination, URL, status, attempts, response code and duration, and the error if there is one. |
indexnow.csv | The date, URL, status, response code and last update. |
legal/ | editions.csv: the periods of each document (title, language, edition, start, end, cause, authors). texts/: the text of each edition in Markdown. acceptances.csv: the acceptances. |
data/contents.json | Each content with its type, status, slug, title, excerpt, parent, dates, blocks as the editor saved them and fields. |
data/revisions.json | Each revision: the original content, the date, the title, the text and the person who saved it. |
data/design-system.json | The design system as settings: tokens, registered styles and default styles. |
data/settings.json | The settings specific to Lovely Render: form recipients and webhooks, fonts, language display. |
Put the site back online elsewhere
The README.md gives the commands for each step. Your host or your agency knows them.
- At your new host, install WordPress with the table prefix
wp_. - Import
database.sqlinto its database. - Place
uploads/andapp/in itswp-content/folder. - Place
lovely-export/inwp-content/themes/. - With the commands in the
README.md, replace the old URLs with the new one. This applies to the site’s URL if it changes and to the one Lovely Render served your media from. - Log in with the administrator account noted on the download page.
- Change the email address and password of this account.
Your pages open in the WordPress editor as WordPress blocks: a paragraph stays a paragraph and an image stays an image. If the editor offers an Attempt recovery on a block, accept it.
Know what goes with your site
| Element | On the other WordPress |
|---|---|
| Paragraphs, headings, images, videos, buttons, lists, text tables, accordions, separators, embedded content and PDFs | WordPress blocks, editable like any other. |
| Content lists, menus, breadcrumbs and a content’s data | WordPress blocks that stay up to date. |
| Templates, header, footer and compositions | WordPress templates and compositions. |
| Content types and fields | Declared by the theme, at the same URLs. |
| Categories | WordPress taxonomies. Each published term becomes a WordPress term, linked to the contents that cited it. Its page, at the same URL, lists those contents. |
| Tabs | WordPress tabs, with no icon or automatic rotation. |
| Sliders and carousels | A gallery or a row of blocks. It no longer scrolls. |
| Icons, logo, complex menus and tables whose cells hold blocks | HTML blocks that keep the same look. |
| Forms | Their fields and rules, with no sending. Connect them to the tool of your choice. |
| Translations | Separate contents, each at the URL of its slug. |
| Animations and interactions | They no longer play. Their settings remain in data/. |
| Cookie banner, list filters and language and appearance switchers | Removed from your pages. |
| Member accounts | Replaced by the single administrator account. |
Export a site being deleted
A site whose deletion is scheduled is erased after 30 days. Its card on the Dashboard shows This site will be deleted on … followed by the date.
A site deactivated during this period shows This site has been disabled to its visitors. Its card shows This site is deactivated and will be deleted on … Its owners can still open its Staging and export it.