Retrieving Posts from Old WP Files

  • Resolved ChaseC

    (@chasec)


    8 years, 10 months ago

    I once had several personal websites built in WordPress on the web, but removed them two or three years ago. I copied the files to my hard drive but doubt that they are a complete backup due to potential invisible files, etc. that may not have copied.

    My question: Is it possible to retrieve and copy the text from the old blog posts from these files? And if so, how would I do this? I don’t care that much about the photos and layouts. I’d be quite happy just to have the basic text. Two of the domains are long expired and one remains active but with an entirely new website in its place.

    Thanks for any help.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • Hi @chasec,

    The only items you can extract from actually WP files structure that has been backed up is your uploads, themes and plugins. What you are looking for is the database file. This file must be exported from the hosts database manage (phpMyAdmin etc.). You would need to have an export or something on those lines.

    If you do not have a database backup, you will not be able to extract any blog posts or pages. WordPress runs dynamically and does not actually write data to files.

    Thread Starter ChaseC

    (@chasec)

    Thanks. Assuming I did do a proper export of a backup (far from certain but perhaps I did), what filename am I looking for, and how would I access it?

    If you do have a Database export it could have any types of extensions but the most common is .sql.

    Thread Starter ChaseC

    (@chasec)

    I do have two or three SQL files with the name of each site on them. I can view them in my text editor and see the occasional passage of text surrounded by a bunch of coding. Is there a way to access this on my Mac in a more usable format?

    I am not aware of any way to extract posts directly from a SQL per-say but what you could do it setup a WordPress instance using your old .SQL file and export the posts using the WordPress export feature. Then simply import them into your new blog.

    Thread Starter ChaseC

    (@chasec)

    That sounds to be not too far outside my realm of my WP expertise. Just a little research and I should be able to figure it out.

    THANK YOU!

    You’re welcome. We are here if you need help with anything else as well. Good Luck

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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