- Migrate Specific Posts or Attachments With a Third WordPress Install
- Duplicate the Site and Delete Posts That Won’t Move
- The Built-in Tools > Export Feature Preserves Post IDs
An easy way to move WordPress content from one site to another is with the built-in XML import and export scripts located under the Tools menu. This tool does not allow users to export only specific posts, attachments, or other content. If you want Posts and Media, you get them all. Here is how I worked around this limitation to migrate 700 specific attachments among thousands.
Use a Third WordPress Install
I duplicated the site to a third, throwaway instance of WordPress using exfil, deleted the attachments I was not interested in (so only the attachments I wanted to move remained), and exported all Media with Tools > Export.
The Hard Part is Deleting All The Posts That Won’t Move
Deleting a few thousand attachments from WordPress is not fast using PHP. Like me, you might imagine writing a small loop with a call to wp_delete_attachment() inside. This is painful, and I do not recommend. (My local Laravel Valet development environment skid to a stop, and after many valet restart to rescue my local server, I decided to move on.)
I probably could have used a database query like DELETE FROM wp_posts WHERE ID NOT IN ( 32281, 32279, ... ), but I opted for the assistance of wp-cli, the WordPress Command Line Interface. This giant command to delete attachments by providing all of their IDs works great and finishes in under one minute:
wp post delete 32281 32279 32263 32258 32248 32247 32241 32239 32238 32230 32222 32195 32152 32151 32150 32131 32130 32129 32102 32067 32066 32060 32059 32058 32057 32052 31977 31957 31954 31953 31919 31918 31889 31875 31868 31864 31863 31859 31843 31839 31838 31837 31836 31835 31817 31816 31815 31814 31813 31812 31810 31801 31799 31798 31777 31776 31775 31774 31764 31763 31751 31731 31730 31726 31725 31721 31720 31719 31714 31707 31706 31681 24802 31646 31631 31623 31612 31605 31603 31584 31578 31572 31571 31552 31544 31541 31531 31501 31498 31497 31480 31441 31439 31397 31395 31391 31390 31389 31388 31323 31322 31316 31289 31287 31249 31237 31236 31224 31222 31206 31183 31175 31172 31170 31168 31161 31160 31158 31156 31148 31120 31107 31098 31097 31096 31073 31037 31036 31035 31029 31033 31032 31031 31030 31026 31025 31024 31007 31003 30992 30991 30935 30930 30928 30925 30924 30918 30917 30913 30912 30911 30909 30907 30899 30880 30781 30756 30743 30742 30731 30674 30673 30643 30634 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381 382 372 271 268 265 223 210 194 189 --force
The --force argument skips Trash and permanently deletes.
What Gave Birth to That Hideous Command
I wrote a bit of PHP to find the post IDs of attachments I wanted to migrate, and used the exclude argument in a get_posts() call to find the post IDs of all other attachments in the site. Then, I built the above wp-cli command in a string, and wrote it to a text file.
After deleting all the posts that should not be migrated, I was then ready to run Tools > Export for Media. The resulting XML file only contains attachments that remain after the massive deletion. The file also has URLs containing .test domains for my local environment, so I replaced those with the production domain. These URL changes mean the attachments will be pulled from the production site, not my local copy that’s only accessible from on my computer.
Provide the XML file to the WordPress importer at Tools > Import. Some servers will kill PHP processes that run longer than a specific amount of time. It’s OK to re-run the Import until it finishes. Because post IDs are preserved, no duplicate posts will result from running an XML import more than once.