Big WordPress MySQL Database : Various Ways to Export and Import

Big WordPress MySQL Database Dump is a headache to Export and Import. Here are various Ways to Export and Import your big WordPress MySQL Database easily. Exporting is not really a problem. If you have PHPMyAdmin (most has), then in tar format Big WordPress MySQL Database Dump  becomes relatively smaller. But the problem with such  Big WordPress MySQL Database Dump is Importing. If you try from PHPMyAdmin, a compressed  Big WordPress MySQL Database Dump of 200 MB can not be uploaded. So here here are all the ways to Import and Export  Big WordPress MySQL Database Dump.

Planning to Import and Export Big WordPress MySQL Database

Planning is needed for bigger sized ones. For the smaller ones, its quite easy. You can follow our Moving WordPress Blog or Website guide for smaller databases. We are talking about over 150 MB sized databases.

Understand which Tables and Rows are making the  Big WordPress MySQL Database : Probably its the comment meta, if so, follow this guide to make the big WordPress MySQL Database smaller. If Posts making it bigger, other planning needed.

Always Optimize a Big WordPress MySQL before Importing : Simple thing, Check All the Tables and select to optimize :

Drop the Tables of some deleted Plugins : Some Plugins, even after deletion, remains there. These are reasons behind a big WordPress MySQL Database Size. Simply drop them.

Optimize or Delete Data not Essential : 404 plugins, Redirection Plugins keep data in their tables, you can reduce some size of your big WordPress MySQL database by deleting the logs from WordPress those plugin’s page.

Plan whether it is possible to import the optimized but still big WordPress MySQL database : If you have Shell access or even you know how to run cronjob, it is possible to bypass this size limit. But if you can not (sometimes the old server is a crap server, it will fail to export and tar), then think to import and export table by table.

Ways to import and export Big WordPress MySQL database

1. Shell / Terminal : Easiest way. Ask your webhosting company about details of the OS they are running and run command to tar the big WordPress MySQL database. Then from the new server’s Shell, use wget command to pull that big WordPress MySQL on your new server. Untar it. Run command to restore it. Your big WordPress MySQL database is not any headache.
2. Table by Table : Select one Table each time and export it as gzip from PHPMyAdmin. Restore / Import in the same way in new server.
3. All fails to import my big WordPress MySQL database : It might happen, due to very old PHPMyAdmin, the gzip version can not import properly your table by table plan to import big WordPress MySQL database. In this case, to import that big WordPress MySQL database, you have to run SQL queries table by table. Simply export that big WordPress MySQL database’s one table at one time as SQL – it will open in any text editor. Do not touch a single line. Select the full thing and Copy it. Go to New server’s PhpMyAdmin and click the SQL tab. Paste the whole thing and hit go. The table will be created.

Comments on importing big Big WordPress MySQL database

• The best way to restore a big WordPress MySQL database is using shell.
• The worst way to restore a big WordPress MySQL database is running SQL  queries.