Written by Admin on 2025-05-06

Downloading a WordPress Site and Running it Locally

WordPress has emerged as a popular content management system for building modern websites. It's a versatile platform that allows users to create, customize, and publish digital content effortlessly. However, as a developer or site administrator, you may need to work on a WordPress site offline for various reasons. For instance, you may want to make changes to your site without disrupting its live version, test new features, or troubleshoot issues locally before implementing them in production. In this post, we'll explore how to download a WordPress site and run it on your computer.

Prerequisites

Before we dive into the process, you should have the following tools and knowledge:

• A web server software, such as Apache or Nginx, installed on your computer.
• A database management system, such as MySQL or MariaDB, installed on your computer.
• PHP installed on your computer.
• A WordPress site to download. You may use the site's URL or backup file.
• Basic knowledge of the command-line interface and MySQL queries.

Steps to Download a WordPress Site

1. Open a terminal or command prompt window on your computer.
2. Create a new directory on your computer where you'll download the WordPress site. You can name it anything you want. For example, my-local-site.
3. Navigate to the directory using the cd command. For instance, if you created my-local-site on your desktop, type cd ~/Desktop/my-local-site.
4. Download the WordPress site using the wget command. If you have a backup file, you can skip this step and proceed to step 6. Assuming the site's URL is https://example.com, type wget -r -np https://example.com.
5. The wget command will download the entire site with all its files and folders to the current directory on your computer. Note that this may take a while, depending on the size of the site.
6. Extract the downloaded zip file or backup file in the same directory where you downloaded the site. Make sure to preserve the file structure. For example, if the downloaded file is example.zip, type unzip example.zip. If the file is a tarball, type tar -xvf example.tar.gz.
7. Rename the extracted directory to something meaningful. For instance, if the site's name is example.com, rename the directory to example.
8. Navigate to the directory where you extracted the site using the cd command. For example, if you renamed the directory to example, type cd ~/Desktop/my-local-site/example.

Steps to Run a WordPress Site Locally

1. Create a new database for your local site. You can use a GUI tool like phpMyAdmin or the command line. Assuming you have MySQL installed, type mysql -u root -p and enter your MySQL password. Then create a new database with a name of your choice, such as my_local_site. For example, type CREATE DATABASE my_local_site;

2. Edit the wp-config.php file in the WordPress site's root directory to adapt it to your local environment. You can use a text editor like Notepad++ or Sublime Text. Alternatively, you can copy the wp-config-sample.php file and rename it to wp-config.php. Then replace the values of the following constants with your local settings:

   • DB_NAME: the name of the database you created in step 1 (my_local_site).
   • DB_USER: the username of your MySQL account. For example, root.
   • DB_PASSWORD: the password of your MySQL account.
   • DB_HOST: the hostname of your MySQL server. For a local installation, you can use localhost.
   • WP_DEBUG: set it to true to enable debugging in case you encounter any issues.

3. Save the wp-config.php file.

4. Open a terminal or command prompt window and navigate to the directory where you have your local site installed (e.g., cd ~/Desktop/my-local-site/example).
5. Start a local web server using PHP's built-in web server. Type php -S localhost:8000. This will start a web server listening on port 8000 of your local machine.
6. Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:8000. You should see your local WordPress site running.

Conclusion

In this post, we've seen how to download a WordPress site and run it locally on your computer. By following these steps, you can work on your site offline without worrying about breaking anything on your live site. Moreover, you can use this setup to test and experiment with new features or plugins before deploying them to production. However, remember that your local site may not reflect the real-world conditions and that testing thoroughly is crucial before pushing changes to the live site.