How to migrate your site to Flywheel using Flywheel Migrations

One question we get a lot is, “Can I migrate my site to Flywheel myself?” and the answer is yes! We’d love to move your site over to Flywheel for free, but if you are the do-it-yourself type, this article is for you.

Table of Contents:

1. Install and launch Flywheel Migrations on the source site
2. Enter your email address
3. Create a Flywheel site for your migration
4. Enter your Flywheel site’s dashboard URL
5. Enter your Flywheel site’s URL
6. Enter your Flywheel username and password
7. Enter Privacy Mode credentials
8. Enter optional information
9. Click the Migrate button
10. Review your migrated site
11. Take your migrated site live

Install and launch Flywheel Migrations on the source site

1. Log in to the WordPress admin area of the site you want to migrate to Flywheel.
2. From the sidebar, go to Plugins > Add New.
3. In the search field of the plugin install page, enter “Flywheel Migrations” and you should see the result shown below. Click Install Now.
   
4. Once installed, head back to your WordPress dashboard and click the Flywheel button on the left sidebar.
   

Enter your email address

1. Type in your email address, check the Terms & Conditions box and select Get Started. This allows Flywheel Migrations to send out handy status updates.

Create a Flywheel site for your migration

If you already have a Flywheel destination site for your migration, you can skip this step.

1. Log in to your Flywheel account, then click the Create a New Site button in your dashboard.
2. Fill out the site creation form and within a few minutes, your new Flywheel site will be ready! You can create a fresh new site, add one to an existing plan, or even spin up a demo site by clicking Create a Demo Site.
3. You can proceed as soon as you see the new site’s dashboard. We’ll need to grab some information from this new site as we go, so keep a tab with your Flywheel dashboard handy.

Enter your Dashboard URL

1. Navigate to the dashboard of the Flywheel site you’d like to migrate to.
2. Copy the URL from the address bar.
3. Paste the URL into the form.

Enter your Flywheel site’s URL

1. Unless you’ve changed your primary domain already, this is the temporary domain assigned to your destination Flywheel site. This domain generally ends in flywheelsites.com.
   
2. If you are migrating into a Staging environment, you will use the URL ending in flywheelstaging.com. You can reference all these URLs in the Staging tab of your Flywheel dashboard.

Enter your Flywheel username and password

This will be the same username and password that you use to log into Flywheel. Note, this may be different than the WordPress username and password for your site!

Enter Privacy Mode credentials

Not sure if your Flywheel site has Privacy Mode enabled? Over on the site’s Overview tab on the Flywheel dashboard, you’ll see the Privacy Mode box on the right sidebar. If this is currently set to “On” (all Demo Sites have this on by default), you will want to copy the username and password credentials over to Flywheel Migrations.

Here’s an example of what your completed migration form should look like.

Enter optional information

If you’d like to migrate files outside of the wp-content folder, migrate additional database tables, or if your source site is password protected, choose the relevant options.

1. Root Directories: By default, the migration plugin will only copy the database and files found in the wp-content directory. If there are any other directories in the site root you need to migrate, select Yes. From there, you’ll be prompted to select from a list.
   
2. Additional Database Tables: Use this option if you would like to include any non-default database tables. Tables starting with the dbprefix are migrated by default with some exceptions. Those exceptions include tables from plugins like Wordfence, which are known to cause problems during the migration and have transient data. However, if they are needed, you are able to select from the dropdown of tables available.
   
3. Source Site Password Protected: If the source site requires a password for access, like another Flywheel site that uses Privacy Mode, you will need to add those credentials so the migration plugin is able to access your site successfully!
   

Click the migrate button

You can now sit back and relax while our Fly robots migrate your site! Progress can be monitored on the next screen, or you can close the page and wait for the completion email to be sent to your inbox.

Review your migrated site

Once the migration has wrapped up, click through the destination Flywheel-hosted site and make sure those robots moved everything over ok. If anything is amiss, get in touch via chat or support ticket, or undo it all by restoring from a backup.

Migration Logs

If you notice that your migration has failed or want to review the migration details, JSON formatted migration logs can be accessed in the _flyprivate folder of the site (via SFTP).

These logs contain the following information:
Migration start time
Source site
Destination URL
Destination hostname
Total files
Synced files
Ignored files
Total tables
Ignored tables
Synced tables
Synced size
Ignored size
WP version
PHP version
Absolute path
Content path
Plugin info (plugin version, active/inactive status)
Theme info (theme version, active/inactive status)
Migration finish time
Database modifications (start and finish time)
Status codes

Take your migrated site live

When you’re ready to take your site live, follow this nifty guide to point your domain to your newly migrated site on Flywheel!