Clone remote WordPress database on local machine

Suppose you have a WordPress website on a remote server, and you want to clone it locally. This post documents my current approach to doing this. I’m sure there is a plugin that makes this process easier, but I haven’t had the time to research.

See this post if you want to do the opposite – clone a local WordPress database on a remote server.

Create dump of remote database using TablePlus

(You could also do this via the via the command line if you wish).

• If you haven’t already, create a connection to your remote database.
• Click on File > Backup.
• Select database. Click on Add option... from the right and choose --no-tablespaces to suppress a MySQL warning.
• Click Start backup... and choose a location to back up to. $HOME/Dumps or a folder in OneDrive / Dropbox are candidates.

Restore database using dump file using TablePlus

• If you haven’t already, create a connection to your remote database.
• Click on File > Restore.
• Select database.
• Choose the dump file that you created from the previous step.

Update columns in database

You’ll want to update the wp_options.siteurl and wp_options.home columns to the URL that you use to access your WordPress website locally. This can be something like http://localhost:8000 if you’re using PHP’s built-in web server or a local domain like my-app.test if you’ve setup Nginx locally.

UPDATE
	wp_options
SET
	option_value = '<local-domain>'
WHERE
	option_name = 'siteurl'
	OR option_name = 'home';

Update all URLs elsewhere

Use the Better Search Replace plugin to replace all references to your remote URL (e.g., https://sajadtorkamani.com) with your local URL (e.g., http://sajadtorkamani.test).

Transfer media files

If you need to transfer media files to the remote server, see this post.