This tutorial focuses on how to use tools in wordpress. It’s not something you’ll spend a lot of your time on, but it is worth knowing about as it’s part of the inbuilt system
Dashboard
First up, go to your Dashboard and on the left panel you’ll see Tools. When you hover over Tools you should see Available Tools, Import and Export. If you have WordPress version 5.2 and upwards, you’ll also see Site Health, Export Personal Data and Erase Personal Data.
WordPress Tools
Under Tools there’ll be Available Tools which shows you what’s available in this section. Often this section is quite empty but you can add tools here that WordPress sends you links to.
Categories and Tag Converter
Click on Categories and Tag Converter to go to the Import section where you can import the tools that allow you to import your data.
Let’s take a quick look at Export. Here you can export certain types of features; Posts, Pages, Templates, Media etc. By choosing All content it will export all of the data (posts, pages, comments, custom fields, terms, navigation menus and custom posts) to act as a backup for your website, which you can also use to then import into a fresh installation.
In this example, click on Download Export File and you’ll notice it has downloaded a file at the bottom of your browser as an .xml file. You can then either keep this as a back up of your site, or import it into another version of WordPress.
To try this out, create a brand-new installation of WordPress. This will have nothing on it except the standard ‘Hello World’ page.
Go back to the installation you want to now install on, (your newly created, empty one), go to Tools and then Import.
As we saw before, this section allows you to download different tools which will help you to import data. For now, we want to install onto our new WordPress installation.
Install WordPress Tools Now
Under Import and under the WordPress option, click on Install Now. This will act like a plugin where an added tool will allow you to import an .xml file. Click Run Importer, then Choose File, select the file you want and click Open. (If it doesn’t allow you to import this may be because of the maximum file size which will vary depending on your host site – contact them if this is the case.)
Then click Upload file and import – this will take you to a page titled ‘Assign Authors’: here you can create a new user login or assign to an existing – the latter option will be easier – then check the box that says Download and import file attachments and Submit.
Now it has imported! It will show you a list of any ‘failed’ imports, you can install those as plugins.
Take a look in Posts and Media and you’ll notice that all of the data is now present in your new installation.
Appearance and Themes
Under Appearance and Themes, you will need to install the theme you want. But the main data has all been imported.
Back to your original website. There’s a great new feature, Site Health. Here, the Status section gives you an overview of what’s currently wrong with your website and how you can improve it. For example, it may recommend that you remove inactive themes, tell you that you have out of date plugins, or that your site is not secure with HTTPS. (To make your website secure you’ll need to download an SSL certificate from a third-party source – get in touch with us if you’re having a problem with this).
Info- How to use wordPress Tools
Under Info you’ll see information about your WordPress, the latest installation, where everything is located etc, database info, server types – you may not need any of this yet but it’s good to know that it’s there.
It’s a good idea to check your Site Health every so often. This is really important to help you take care of your WordPress to keep it clean and keep everything moving fast.
Wrap Up
That’s it for WordPress Tools! I hope this tutorial has been helpful and keep an eye out for more.
