WordPress:Importing Content

WordPress currently supports importing data in the form of posts (articles) and most of the details or features supported by the content publishing platform.

Most of the following Content Import scripts can be found under the "Import" tab of your WordPress administration interface.

If you run into specific problems, a search on the WordPress Support Forum will likely lead to a solution or try the Codex WordPress:FAQ. Users of a blogging system not listed here who wish to switch to WordPress are invited to ask for help in the WordPress Support Forum as well.

To help you understand the differences between WordPress and other existing software, we recommend you review the WordPress:WordPress Features and more on WordPress:Working with WordPress.

b2

The script for importing b2 posts into your WordPress blog is located on your site in the wordpress/wp-admin/import-b2.php.

(Note: In Wordpress 2.0.2, this is no longer true. There is a b2.php file under wordpress/wp-admin/import, however, it is empty.)

At Wild Mind, you can find a short b2 to WP tutorial.

b2evolution

There are currently two methods of importing a b2evolution install into Wordpress described in this section.

Direct Import Between Databases

A non-WordPress script for for importing from b2evo to WordPress 2.x is available (legacy importer for WordPress 1.x).

Instructions:

1. Install WordPress
   
2. Download file, remove .txt extension, and upload to your wp-admin directory
   
3. Run the script and input your b2evo database name and password
   

Done! Details about the script and usage can be found in this forum topic with discussion and updates

This script has currently not been updated since September 2006 and is incompatible with the current (v1.9) b2evolution database structure.

Import via Movable Type Export Format

The second approach is to re-skin a b2evolution blog so that when its source is viewed it appears to be in the Movable Type export format. This approach, which should work for all versions of Wordpress, and all recent versions of b2evolution is described in full on this page.

Blogger

Users of WordPress 2.2 and above can import from Blogger. Earlier versions cannot import from Blogger because "New Blogger" was released by Google, invalidating all the old importers. Only WordPress 2.2 and later has support for "New Blogger".

If you haven't already, you must be using New Blogger and a Google Account on Blogger. If you are still using Old Blogger, the importer will not work.

To start the importer, go to Manage → Import → Blogger and follow the directions.

Blogware

• A Guide to Importing from Blogware to WordPress

Blosxom

• A Xcript for Importing from Blosxom to WordPress

• Perl script for converting Blosxom entries to WP-friendly RSS (Picky about html correctness in Blosxom entries, including final slash in img and br tags.)

Dotclear

• View the tutorial(en) to import a Dotclear blog into a WordPress 2 one.

Drupal

• Detailed migration of Drupal 4.7 to WordPress
• Migrating Drupal to WordPress

e107 CMS

You can find a dedicated script to import e107 news, categories, users, custom pages and comments to Wordpress on Coolkevmen's blog.

Greymatter

The script for importing Greymatter posts into your WordPress blog is located at wp-admin/import-greymatter.php.

The script is fairly old. It was originally written to import from Greymatter to b2. There have been cases where the import script does not work with WordPress 1.5. In these cases, you can try this workaround:

• Install WordPress 1.2
• Import from Greymatter
• Then upgrade to WordPress latest version

You can also read the forum thread at http://wordpress.org/support/topic.php?id=24110 for other workarounds.

Jogger.pl

There's a script that allows to import entries and comments from Jogger.pl - Polish, Jabber-powered weblog system. Comments and manual are in Polish (since Jogger is mostly polish), but if you have any questions, feel free to ask in comments on author's blog.

LiveJournal

The script for importing LiveJournal posts into your WordPress blog is located at wp-admin/import-livejournal.php (Manage → Import → LiveJournal). It is available in WordPress 2.1.1. WordPress 2.3 and above, it is located at wp-admin/import/livejournal.php

The LiveJournal importer requires you to export entries from your LiveJournal account in XML format. Instructions for exporting LiveJournal entries can be found at LiveJournal export instructions. This tools seems to require exporting your journal one month at a time. However. the import tool will happily accept all the entries in a single file, so you may save them all in the same file. You may also have to do a "View Source" on the page that the Livejournal export tool returns, in order to see the XML source. You can then copy and paste this into a file to import.

• http://heinous.org/wiki/LiveJournal_XML_Export_Script has a perl script (ljexport.pl) that can export all LJ entries to one XML file for a range of years, saving the trouble of having to manually pull this for each month.
• LJ Archive is a Windows-only exporter for LiveJournal.

Live Space (MSN Space)

• Live Space Mover

Mambo

• A Script for Importing from Mambo to WordPress (ZIP)

Motime - Splinder

These are brands of the blog hosting provider Tipic Inc.

Using a python script named Spleender, you can import the posts (not the comments), see an English case study or the full documentation in Italian.

You can import comments, posts and categories also using the WP Plugin Splinder/Motime Importer, see an English quick guide or the full documentation in Italian.

Pivot

There is a script: Importing posts from Pivot 1.2 with *Linux* server to WordPress

There is another script, which has been updated to work with WordPress 2.0: Pivot importer for WordPress. It tries to preserve users and categories.

However, Pivot also has an excellent RSS support and that WordPress can import RSS. Example.

Movable Type

To import from Movable Type, select the Manage tab, then the Import sub-tab. You can also run the import.php program manually. It is located on your site in the wordpress/wp-admin/import.php. Select the link Movable Type and TypePad.

• WordPress:Importing from Movable Type to WordPress
• Scot Hacker's "Notes on a Massive WordPress Migration"

Nucleus CMS

• A Guide to Importing from Nucleus CMS
• James Sasitorn's Script for Importing from Nucleus CMS mentioned in http://wordpress.org/support/topic/2893
• Nucleus zu WordPress-Konverter, a script for converting, with German explanation.
• Tested working importing from NucleusCMS 3.24 to Worpress 2.1

Radio Userland

• A Guide to Importing from Radio Userland

Roller

You can fairly easily import data from Roller using the MovableType import script. First, you need to export your blog from Roller database, then use it to create entries in your new blog. Pictures you need to copy to appropriate content directory yourself. Modify the $user, $oldresources, $newresources, and $connection variables in a beginning of script, store it on somewhere on you web host where php execution is allowed, and you will get the dump of your Roller blog in MovableType Import format in return. You can just use wget to store it into file. Then follow the instructions for MovableType import...

• Importing From Roller is complete and comprehensive. This should work for Roller pre-2.0 release. After Version 2.0, the comment table is changed to roller_comment. Just change the select statement to roller_comment.

• Also have a look another technique explained at the blog Null Pointer.

Textpattern

The script for importing Textpattern posts into your WordPress blog is located at wp-admin/import-textpattern.php.

Another script may be found on the WordPress Forum on this forum thread.

(Update March 31, 2007) The wordpress textpattern.php import script seems to be buggy. Therefore, another script(hack of the wordpress-included one) and step-by-step importing instructions are to be found over here.

TypePad

The WordPress:Importing from Movable Type to WordPress works for TypePad blogs, too. The only difference is in the process of exporting entries from the TypePad blog. Contact TypePad support for instructions on exporting entries from TypePad. Once you have the exported entries, follow the instructions in WordPress:Importing from Movable Type to WordPress to complete the import into WordPress.

Typo

• Script and instructions for automatically importing typo articles, pages, comments, categories and tags into WordPress

web-log.nl

• Script and Instructions for Importing from web-log.nl to WordPress

WordPress

To import from a WordPress export file into a WordPress blog follow these steps.

1. Log into that blog as an administrator.
2. Go to Manage: Import in the blog's admin panels.
3. Choose "WordPress" from the list.
4. Upload this file using the form provided on that page.
5. You will first be asked to map the authors in this export file to users on the blog. For each author, you may choose to map to an existing user on the blog or to create a new user
6. WordPress will then import each of the posts, comments, and categories contained in this file into your blog

Xanga

xanga.r is a program that parses xanga pages to get the post and comments. Then it can output them in the WordPress rss 2.0 xml format for WordPress to import.

Xanga Archives

If you had paid for Xanga Premium and saved your archive files before switiching to WordPress, an importer can be found here.

Zoomblog

These are the instructions to import your posts from Zoomblog:

1. Go to your Zoomblog account and export your blog data (it generates an XML file).
2. Download the Zoomblog importer from here. Save it as zoomblog.php and upload it to your wp-admin/import directory.
3. Login into WordPress and go to Manage:Import:Zoomblog.
4. Choose the Zoomblog XML export file and it should be done.

It imports all posts and comments, and creates new categories, though, unfortunately, there's no way to figure out the proper category name, so you'll have to edit them afterwards. It does not deal with multiple authors.

Importing from an RSS feed

2.0.x

2.0 introduced this as an option in the Admin menu under "Import".

First, save the RSS feed you wish to import someplace on your local machine. This would be the source and would come from the site that has the content you wish to import into your WP blog. A simple way to get the feed into a text file is to find the RSS link for that site, click it and view it in your browser, then copy/paste that to a text file. Or, of course, use your preferred tools.

Click the "Browse" button and navigate to the file containing the feed you wish to import and click "Import" to let it run.

Note: Depending on the feed and format, you may not get the entire thing loaded on the first attempt. One option is to determine how much got imported (Manage -> Posts) and remove those sections from your saved RSS file and then re-import. Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.

Pre 2.x

WordPress also has a generic RSS importer, which you can find in your WordPress source at wp-admin/import-rss.php. If your current blogging system can export in a valid RSS format, you can import that into WordPress.

Importing the RSS data is done by running the import-rss.php script from the server. For security reasons you have to edit the script to point to the file where the RSS data is stored.

If you have your blog at http://example.com, you can place your file, for example oldblog.xml, in the wp-admin directory on your site.

Edit import-rss.php by changing the value of RSSFILE in the beginning of the script. After you have changed this, run the script by accessing the script with your browser, in this case you’ll go to http://example.com/wp-admin/import-rss.php.

If the script finds your file, a link marked Begin RSS Import occur, and by pressing this link the import will start.

The RSS data are now imported, and you can remove the RSS file and restore the script.