6 Steps : How To Migrate From Joomla to WordPress
I’ve been using Joomla v1.0 for my blog for the past 5 months and find that it is still in it’s baby stages. There were several issues about Joomla that just didn’t make it as a blogging platform. I had difficulty because
- I cannot tag my posts
- once I label a post as archive, it will no longer appear in the main pool of posts
- I tried finding but still cannot place advertisements in between posts
- I have to install a third party component to enable users to leave a comment
- I have to insert html code manually to include ads in the posts
No doubt the support I got from the forums are helpful but it is not enough. The frustration I face during days when Joomla prevents me from doing what I want to do just spoils the rest of my day. Enough is enough and so I decided to migrate Joomla to wordpress.
Firstly, a million thanks to Rodney Blevins for making it possible to move Joomla to WordPress. Thanks for making the Mambo2Wordpress Import Wizard that made life easier for me. Now I’ll contribute back by detailing my steps.
The import wizard made by Rodney was actually meant for Mambo (a previous name for Joomla). However, after several modifications, it was Joomla compatible. You can find the download link to my modified version at the end of the article. Below are the steps I took.
Tested on :
Joomla CMS v1.0.12
Wordpress 2.1
- Install WordPress and create a folder in the root called ‘export’.
- Update the config.php file with your own database names, mysql user name, password and host name.
- All my tables had a ‘jla_’ prefix in the front
- Upload index.php and config.php to the ‘export’ folder in the root of your website.
- Surf to http://your-wp-installation/export and follow the steps to import your articles or links into WordPress.
- You’re DONE!
So if your tables have a different prefix, eg. ‘abc_’, then just search and replace ALL ‘jla_’ with ‘abc_’ for the index.php file.
DISCLAIMER : Use it at your own risk. I have tested it a lot on my own server and it works, which does not mean it will work for you as well. It may break your website accidentally. ALWAYS make sure you have a working backup before attempting big scale stunts like this.
Update 2009/01/04 : Fixed broken download link
Update 2009/06/24 : If the script above does not work for you, try out Jason Anton’s modified script here.
February 27th, 2007 at 8:28 am
Hi,
I´m brazilian and I´m migrating from Joomla! 1.0.11 to WordPress 2.1.1.
I used your script and it worked fine!
Just was needed to remark the line 292
// require_once (“../wp-includes/functions-formatting.php”); in index.php because file doesn´t exists inside 2.1.1 WordPress version.
Some accentuation problems happened, but don´t so huge.
Thank you!
Congratulations for this great work!
February 27th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Hi Colombero.
It’s great to know it worked for you.
I’ll remark line 292 to make it compatible to WordPress 2.1.1
=)
March 21st, 2007 at 4:29 am
Hi,
I get this message:
“There doesn’t seem to be a wp-config.php file. I need this before we can get started. Need more help? We got it. You can create a wp-config.php file through a web interface, but this doesn’t work for all server setups. The safest way is to manually create the file.”
I have this file in “export” folder. Also, I changed the attributes of the file but no results.
My website is not installed in the root directory of my host, and in a folder, which is in the root directory. Could that be the problem? If that is the problem, what should I change in the “index” file?
Thanks in advance!
Regards from sunny Bulgaria.
March 21st, 2007 at 9:34 am
try creating the ‘export’ folder inside your wp installation directory
try :
home / public_html / your_wp_folder / export
March 26th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Super script. Thanks, Chris!
March 26th, 2007 at 9:50 am
You’re welcome, bro.
April 1st, 2007 at 11:29 am
Dude, where did the download link go?
April 1st, 2007 at 11:44 am
Rey, it’s fixed dude.
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:22 am
Dude, I love you–awesome script! Now I just gotta figure out how to get my jomcomments to get transfered over to wordpress comments. ::sigh::
but seriously, you freaking rock! thanks for these updates to the script!
April 2nd, 2007 at 2:26 am
hahaha..
pretty excited huh..
April 8th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
You are a legend!!! I am so THRILLED to finally be able to dump joomla and move to WP or one of the other more flexible systems. I will play with WP for a while and see if I want to stick with it. The only problem was that I couldnt get the thing to put the posts in a particular category – they’re all uncategorised until I go in and save them once. This will take a while to fix but at least all the 100s of articles are in there!!
Thank you so much!
April 11th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
I am getting a “Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in /path/to-my/blog/export/index.php on line 1″
Using the index file straight out of the box (there is nothing to edit on the index.php)
mystifying…
RH
April 11th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
before or after step 1?
April 11th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
>>> before or after step 1?
April 13th, 2007 at 11:51 am
April 14th, 2007 at 11:28 am
I hope this comment goes thru- I did get the export script going; somehow when it was getting ftp’d it was losing its formatting and mangling the line endings. I had to fix by copying over script content in Cpanel File Manager.
Now cant connect to db, pretty sure I have dbnames, users and pwd’s correct am consulting hosting co to try to to determine the problem.
RH
April 14th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
richard : noted.
April 18th, 2007 at 6:34 am
I guy… can you make a script to make wordpress to joomla export?
Tanks…
April 21st, 2007 at 2:56 pm
^^ erm…. why dont you ask a joomla person to do that.
April 30th, 2007 at 2:12 am
I just tested the script with Joomla 1.0.12-Stable-Full Package and WordPress 2.1.3 and it works perfectly, thanks!
April 30th, 2007 at 11:21 am
mark : you’re welcome.
May 6th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Hi Chris. I have a website where i´m able to use just 1 database. Does this script still work?
May 6th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I tested the script but i´m stuck on step 2 because i have the following warning:
Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Access denied for user ‘ODBC’@'localhost’ (using password: NO) in C:\xampplite\htdocs\xampp\wordpress\export\index.php on line 187
Could not connect
What can i do?
May 6th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Hildergarn : re-check the password for user ‘ODBC’. If it is passwordless, try creating one for it.
May 6th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Well, i noticed that i don´t have that user (ODBC) registered, but i created it and i gave a password but still i am getting the same issue :S
May 6th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
hildergarn : did you give the users permission to access the database?
this is actually step 1. did you get past this?
May 18th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Just 2 questions:
- Does affect if I install wordpress inside joomla´s directory or not?
- Is there any problem if my export DB info and my import DB info share the same information??
May 19th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Nevermind Chris… I did it !!! i exported all my content to joomla. Thanks for the manual.
BTW, do you mind if i translate this tutorial to spanish. I want to use your images also. i will give all the credits to you. Just give me an answer.
May 19th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Hildergarn : dude, go ahead and do whatever you wanna do. =)
May 21st, 2007 at 8:52 am
Thanks
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:40 am
Hi,
This script is great, and works as advertised – many thanks!
I have two other types of content I need to migrate:
Static content to WordPress Pages
Bookmarks to WordPress Links
Has anyone else already succeeded in updating this script to make this possible?
Also, my ultimate goal is to migrate from Joomla to Drupal – and am doing this now via WordPress because there is a decent WordPress to Drupal conversation tool.
Any insights most welcome!
Cheers,
Tobias
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:50 am
you’re welcome, tobias.
June 17th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Hi there,
I’m trying to import Joomla to WP 2.2, so far i’ve configured the config.php and got stuck at step 1. This is the message that i received:
>>Okay, we’re connected to the Mambo database.
>>
>>Now, we need to select the method you want to use to import your >>articles or links. (You should automatically advance to the next step, >>but if it doesn’t you can click the button.)
Maybe this scripts doesn’t work with WP 2.2 ?
June 18th, 2007 at 12:18 am
Hey sorry for my first post, it was my stupid ass fault when upload the unsaved index.php to server.
Thank you for this awesome script, it saves me a lot of time.
June 18th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Koroshiya1 : =)
June 18th, 2007 at 10:58 am
Hi Chris –
I’m having the same problem redhead is having (see comment 12 above). The posts are not correctly appearing in the categories until I edit them once and save them. Any suggestions?
Cheers,
Tobias
July 5th, 2007 at 12:23 am
Just playing arround with this stuff and this script pushed me to the right direction. Thanks alot. I also have to convert those funny mosimage tags to img tags and of course akocomments to wp. Importing users from joomla is also possible. If someone need this stuff, just let me know. Im currently done with it on my local testspace. The script works so far, but propably not on all jommla installations. Cheers, mimo
July 5th, 2007 at 2:06 am
@Tobias, this behaviour is related to the wp_post2cat table. Theres a relationship between the category and the post. A solution would be to update this table while importing the posts.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:26 am
Hey,
I get an empty page every single time I run my http://www.mysite.com/wordpress/export
Is this a common problem?
Cheers
Jacob
July 24th, 2007 at 8:38 am
did you get the path correct?
did you upload both index.php and config.php into the ‘export’ folder?
July 28th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Hi Chris, I’ve the same error of Richard (comment 13).
$dbh and $dbi are the dbnames?
I configured all the variables, and I changed all the mos_ prefix to jos_ …but I’ve always the sintax error on line 1
July 28th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Another information: I was using Joomla 1.0.8
July 30th, 2007 at 1:13 am
crazyhorse : try mailing him at rrhobbs[at]gmail.com and ask him for details on how he’s fixed his.
i’ll try to reproduce the problem for testing.
August 5th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Helo, i have problem with this script. I am currently working on conversion of http://www.kamposkole.sk/projekt-KP1/ to clients/KPS_new/, i have removed require_once (â€../wp-includes/functions-formatting.phpâ€); from the line 292. I have succesfully exported articles, but when is in article a some of Ä Å¡ ž, the article is fully damaged
Any ideas?
August 5th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Sorry, I have dismissed in the new link – clients.mediainteractive.sk/KPS-new/.
August 6th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Chris,
I am not seeing the link to download the script itself. Where can I get it.
Thanks
August 7th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Ján PavlÃk : did you use any php plugins/addons before you converted?
Houston : The link is below this line ‘Update 1/4 : Fixed broken download link’
August 8th, 2007 at 4:26 am
Chris,
I am not really a programmer of sorts and the part of changing database names is a bit confusing in that I am not sure how to even go and find the list of them to change. i know how to use my hosting providers control panel (cpanel) to get to it bt after that I am at a bit of a loss. Is all of this too elementary to ask here or can you give me some guidance, or anyone here for that matter.
Thanks,
Houston
August 8th, 2007 at 4:51 am
Well I guess I should ask this critical question as well. Will this script work on Mambo as well?
Thanks.
August 8th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Yup. It works on Mambo.
it has nothing to do with cpanel. however, it has to do with transferring the files to the server by FTP. Like how you transferred your Joomla files before installing.
If you use Filezilla, your screen should look like Step 1 above.
August 10th, 2007 at 12:10 am
In the config file what information goes in to the “dbh” and “dbi” fields?
August 10th, 2007 at 1:27 am
I am getting an error of “Could not select database”
Here is what I have for my setup:
http://www.hbip.com/wp.jpg
What do I use for the name of the databases?
Sorry for being such a pain in the but.
Thanks,
Houston.
August 10th, 2007 at 1:27 am
Sorry, the link is:
http://www.hbip.com/images/wp.jpg
August 10th, 2007 at 3:04 am
OK, Well I am slowly punching my way through. It looks as if I am now connected but now I am getting an error going from step one to step two. I thought once I was connected to the database that was it but apparently not.
When I get to the screen that asks:
“Import articles from a whole section:” and I select one from the drop down list I get this error:
Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Access denied for user ‘ftlotl_wrdp1′@’localhost’ (using password: YES) in /home2/ftlotl/public_html/wp/export/index.php on line 232
Could not connect
What do I need to do now?
Thanks,
Houston
August 10th, 2007 at 7:20 am
I can get pass step1 without any problems, but when i’m trying in step2 to move content it only says 0 items moved..
August 10th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Access denied for user ‘ftlotl_wrdp1′@’localhost’ (using password: YES) in /home2/ftlotl/public_html/wp/export/index.php on line 232
houston : check and see if your username / pwd combo is right.
mato78 : did you update your table prefixes?
August 11th, 2007 at 12:20 am
OK, I got everything configured and get past Step 1. But when I choose a section (or anything for that matter) from Step 2, all I get is:
Step Two
Query failed
What am I doing wrong?
August 11th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Adam : it has to do with SQL. Check out the structure and data of your Joomla tables for the export files cannot recognize the query.
August 14th, 2007 at 4:09 am
I have not been unsuccessful in getting the conversion utility to work.
I downloaded the 2 files
Created the export folder
Modified config.php with my correct Joomla and WordPress SQL settings.
Make sure the index.php had the correct (jos_) prefix. I used find and replace. Saved both files and then placed them in my export folder located in my wordpress directory.
I then went to the index.php file in my browser. I click on step one. I then choose my Joomla category I want to export. It brings me to the next page and then I choose the WordPress category I want to import to. I then get a response: Importing 0 items finished. I had 143 items in that category. I tried this for every single category section you name it. It always says Importing 0.
I have WordPress 2.2.2 ( download the old WP 2.0.1 same results) and have Joomla 1.0.12
I did testing and changed the users password and databases to see what errors would appear. The utility always shows errors when the config.php has the incorrect settings. When the correct settings are in place the utility will finish and say again “Importing 0 Items finished”. I doubled checked and made sure the index Php had all the correct database prefixes. It never imports anything. All my categories show up just fine for Joomla and WordPress in the conversion utility. So it must be seeing and accessing the databases just fine.
I have read all the posts and tried everything I can and still can’t get it to work. Joomla has been great but want to explore my possibilities with WordPress.
The only way I can get my data over is to import via RSS file in WP 2.2.2. This will import each category into uncategorized. I then have to go into the WP SQL database and change the category ID for each Item to what I want it to be. If I import one category at a time and make the changes it can work without confusion. But it would be sure great if I could use this utility. It will save me hours of work.
Any help or suggestions would be great! I have hundreds and hundreds of posting that I need to move over.
Sincerely,
LM
August 14th, 2007 at 5:27 am
Chris,
OK, I got it all to work now. All the data is now moved over to WP. Why are the images no longer in the articles and also, they are not associated with the categories either. Have missed something or is this not supported?
Thanks again and again…..
Houston
August 14th, 2007 at 8:00 am
Houston : great to hear that!
If the URL of the images are
../images/picture.jpg
just move the ‘image’ folder to the root folder. It should work.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:33 am
LM : I’ve downloaded the latest WordPress 2.2.2 and Joomla 1.0.13 and I’ve managed to import ALL the sample articles from Joomla over to WordPress. The script seems to be working well for both the latest versions.
Here’s a suggestion.
Install WAMP and try it out in your own PC.
http://www.wampserver.com/en/
I assume that you must have backed up your files locally before trying to import everything. So just try reproducing it locally and see if it is migratable or not.
August 14th, 2007 at 10:03 am
Thanks for the quick reply Chris!
Thank you for delving into this. I am usually pretty good at figuring this kind of stuff out. I do have quite an array of ad-ons in joomla. Hopefully one is not affecting this process.
Yes, I made an exact copy of my Joomla DB in phpMyAdmin – 2.9.2 and am using it to pull my joomla export data from.
I will try it with the WAMP server locally and post my results!
Thank you again!
LM
August 14th, 2007 at 10:35 am
Just installed WAMP. Pretty cool. ( I had seen it in the past but never needed to really use it.)
Installed WP 2.2.2 in the WAMP WWW.
Exported my Joomla DB and WP DB from my host.
Imported the 2 databases into the local WAMP sql. They both looked identical to the online versions.
Installed the migration utility to the local WP install. Configured the config file to the local WAMP SQL server info.
I am able to use the Local phpMyAdmin and run the local WP install just fine. I then ran the migration utilities install.php from the export folder with the same results.
“Importing 0 items
Finished!”
Must be something in my Joomla database. I will do some testing with some very old backups and even a default install and try to narrow down what might be causing this and post it so others with this same issue might find resolve.
LM
August 14th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Chris,
Houston here once again about the images not being associated to the articles. When I view the articles in wp that have been imported over from Mambo but the articles with images are not showing a broken image, they are simply showing “{mosimage}” in place of the image. So if you view the PAGE SOURCE there is no actual link that is incorrect.
There are literally hundreds of articles so going through and placing the images back in is not really an option. I need to find a way to fix this.
Thanks,
Houston
August 15th, 2007 at 7:49 am
Houston : When I migrated my entire blog from Joomla previously, I corrected each article 1 by 1. It took my about 2 months to fix everything.
August 16th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
My imported articles are not linked with the category. The category has still 0 Items, the articles are uncategorized. Any Ideas?
August 19th, 2007 at 2:35 am
Chris, thank for the quick reply. Unfortunately, since I’m not a SQL or PHP guru, I’m still confused. My SQL tables are set up according to the standard Joomla installation. They each begin with jos_ and I modified the PHP file accordingly. Can you provide me with any more detailed clues or information to help me troubleshoot this issues?
August 20th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Andi : I’m not too sure bout that one. anyways, it’s fixable in time.
Adam : have you tried reproducing the migration procedure locally from your pc?
August 26th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
This works on my Windows box with Joomla 1.0.13 and WordPress 2.2.2. Very nice piece of software, many thanks!
August 27th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
not sure what I did wrong before but just tried the instructions and script and it seem to work fine.
Thanks Chris.
RH
August 27th, 2007 at 10:16 pm
BTW FYI my Joomla install is 1.0.12 and WP install is 2.2.2
August 27th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
…same categories woes as everybody else, but its a trifle compared to some of the alternatives?…
RH
August 28th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Hobbs : nice.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
http://www.sieliakus.nl/blog/export/index.php?step=1
Query failed??
SELECT * FROM jos_sections
this works straight up in phpmyadmin
what do i do wrong???
September 4th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Thanks!
Work for me
bye bye joomla
September 29th, 2007 at 12:39 am
I get this error : “Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in /home/fpox/public_html/wordpress/export/index.php on line 1″
September 29th, 2007 at 5:28 am
Nice script !
by the way, with WordPress 2.3, this script is looking for a table that no longer exists which results in a “Query failed” error.
It’s working perfectly in WP 2.2.3 which I then plan to upgrade to WP 2.3.
September 29th, 2007 at 7:24 am
ionut : have you tried it out locally, on your hard drives, yet?
September 29th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
No, i’ve tried this on the ftp, and the thing is that the database from the joomla site is hosted on godaddy and the database from wordpress is hosted on hostgator. This could be the problem?
September 30th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
Ok, so i’ve tried it out locally, and i got the same error like Adam : Step Two Query failed. Maybe he find out a solution and could help me.
September 30th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Just installed WAMP. Pretty cool. ( I had seen it in the past but never needed to really use it.)
Installed WP 2.2.2 in the WAMP WWW.
Exported my Joomla DB and WP DB from my host.
Imported the 2 databases into the local WAMP sql. They both looked identical to the online versions.
Installed the migration utility to the local WP install. Configured the config file to the local WAMP SQL server info.
I am able to use the Local phpMyAdmin and run the local WP install just fine. I then ran the migration utilities install.php from the export folder with the same results.
“Importing 0 items
Finished!â€
Same here
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:20 am
ionut : my guess is that the script couldn’t locate your tables.
try installing a fresh joomla on your local WWW and import the default articles over to wordpress.
if it works, try installing another fresh copy of joomla and import your database in. and try moving it over to wordpress again.
if it works, great. if it doesn’t means it’s gotta do with your tables. try it first and get back to me.
October 6th, 2007 at 7:17 am
HI.
Thanks much for this utility.
I’m hung up after I select “Select a WordPress category to import from your section.”
I get the following error:
Warning: main(../wp-includes/functions-formatting.php) [function.main]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/acirques/public_html/nikbeeson-blog/export/index.php on line 292
Fatal error: main() [function.require]: Failed opening required ‘../wp-includes/functions-formatting.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php’) in /home/acirques/public_html/nikbeeson-blog/export/index.php on line 292
Does anyone have any idea what’s going wrong here?
Gracias in advance
Nik
October 6th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Hey, shite, I managed to get it to work.
I noticed that my wp install does not have the aforementioned file ‘functions-formatting.php’. It doesn’t exist in the ‘includes’ folder.
I went into the export/index.php doc and removed the three references to that file in the code.
It worked.
October 9th, 2007 at 8:42 pm
i’m having a similar issue.
I installed a brand new copy of WordPress on the same server as the Joombla install.
I was able to get to step 1 without an issue:
“Step One
Okay, we’re connected to the Mambo database.
Now, we need to select the method you want to use……”
When selecting anything from the dropdown, it immediately goes to the next screen and gives a Query Failed error.
“export/index.php?section=1&step=2″
Can anyone offer any suggestions?
October 9th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Still researching.
I’m not much of a coder, but it seems when index.php gets to step 2, it is looking for a table called wp_categories:
“$query = “SELECT cat_ID, cat_name FROM `wp_categories`”;
$result = mysql_query($query) or die(“Query failed”);
?>
”
My default configuration of the WP install doesn’t seem to have that in there:
wp_comments
wp_links
wp_postmeta
wp_posts
etc
etc
Could that be why? Forgive me again…I don’t know much of what I’m talking about.
October 9th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
It seems that WordPress 2.3 changed it’s file structure for the database I guess.
I reverted to an older version (2.1.1) and it worked flawlessly.
Your script is wonderful. Thank you so much.
October 10th, 2007 at 7:48 am
thon : glad it worked out for you. =)
November 9th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
I get error:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in /home/hannuonl/public_html/wp_blog/export/index.php on line 1
What could be wrong?
H.
November 10th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
answering to myself:
using Programmers Notepad for editing did someting to the code.
After doing the editing again with Wordpad everything works.
BUT:
only with 2.2.2. The script does not work with 2.3.1.
H.
November 10th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
thanks for the notification, Heinäkenkä.
i think the script works in only version 2.2, and for others who might want to migrate, I’d suggest 2.2.2 and then upgrading it to the latest wordpress version after completion.
November 26th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Hi Chris,
I can’t download the file. Could u please provide it in the regular way. I’ll be happy to mirror it for you.
Thanks
November 26th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
ok dida.
i’ve changed the file hosting link to mediafire.
December 1st, 2007 at 4:08 am
Hi,
I just adjusted the code of the index.php script to migrate a Joomla! 1.0.12 site to a WordPress 2.3.1. If you are interested in the fixed script let me know so I can provide it to you.
– Robin
December 2nd, 2007 at 2:27 am
Hi Robin!
Can you send me this Joomla 1.0.12 to WP 2.3.1 script?
Thank for your works!
Regards:
-ctrlshift-
December 5th, 2007 at 1:59 am
It’s not working 100% yet, it seems that categories are now stored/linked in at least 3 tables. Checking out WP 2.2 and upgrade to 2.3.1, see if that is easier.
December 15th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Thanks so much for this. I was having issues importing the Joomla entries to WP 2.3.1 with no luck, but reverting locally to 2.2 and importing worked fine.
December 17th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
I migrated to version 2.3.1 of wordpress. However, some of the database table names and fields have to be updated. For example, wp_categories does not exist in 2.3.1. Instead it is the terms table. You also have to rename cat_id to id and cat_name to name.
It worked great after a little editing of the script.
December 30th, 2007 at 7:34 am
I installed an old version of wordpress (2.2). It still not working. I keep getting this error:
“require_once(../wp-includes/functions-formatting.php) [function.require-once]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory…”
December 30th, 2007 at 8:29 am
also, the file index.php keeps getting written as binary once changes are made or once uploaded. I can’t figure out how in the world to change it.
December 31st, 2007 at 9:37 am
cmsflipper : have you tried migrating locally first?
January 8th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
I am editing this script to make it work on 2.3.2 I am almost there. Will share the link once its ready
January 9th, 2008 at 3:17 am
thanks azeem.
January 17th, 2008 at 10:04 am
http://azeemkhan.info/2008/joomla2wordpress-import-wizard-v3/
Here you go, its ready and working smoothly on 2.3.2 !
This helped me put my SQL Join skills to task. If you look at the code you will see how the new Taxonomy setup works in the new DB Schema.
Thanks Chris, love your site!
January 18th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Ah thanks for this site. glad it can be done. one question though, is for me my important need is to transfer users… how can this be done?
January 20th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
shank : this script was made to only migrate the articles over, not users.
January 20th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
azeem : thanks, dude.
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:27 am
ah. makes sense. does anyone know how to migrate users?
January 28th, 2008 at 9:44 am
One BIG question – will this automatically delete the previous joomla database or re-write it or effect it in any way?
January 28th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Qui : No. It doesn’t. In any case, I’d recommend you to try it out locally on your computer first.
January 28th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Thanks! Worked like a charm! Any idea how or if possible at all to transfer comments attached with each blog post as well?
January 28th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Qui : Nope. Just posts.
February 15th, 2008 at 5:22 am
been tryng to to go from mambo2WP, tried WP2.2.2 and below but nothing works. been really frustrated
all I get is the Query error and on part 2 to select with cat, it gives me the blank page, any ideas or I can pay someone to do this for me. thanks!
February 15th, 2008 at 11:55 am
try it on a fresh install locally. Try it to check and see if you’ve edited the config.php and index.php correctly.
February 16th, 2008 at 1:15 am
i did, numerous time, can’t understand why it just has a blank page right after step 2.
February 16th, 2008 at 1:48 am
Hi Chris,
I reverted back to WP version 2.1.1 but same problem. Create a brand new database – same problem In the index.php, what is there to edit except for the “mos_” part?
It just gives a blank page:
http://utofivestar.com/export/
help!
February 18th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
I wonder if the reason is because of the symbols.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Do you know of any other ways to transfer mambo articles and post into wordpress? By MySQL?
February 18th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Yeah. MySQL. You can get a rough idea on how it is done by looking at the sql queries in index.php
February 19th, 2008 at 1:51 am
Hi Chirs,
I have no clue about the MySQL stuff.
By the way, perhaps I can pay you to help me export my mambo site to my new wordpress site. I have an extensive amount of articles and post in mambo and it would take awhile to manually export them all to wordpress. Can you look at my database and site and give me an estimate of how much it would cost for you to do it? I am sure it can be done, I am just not technically savy enough to troubleshoot the problems.
Thanks,
Vinh
February 19th, 2008 at 1:51 am
you can email me at vinh(@)cavian.com
March 20th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Hello,
I have a huge site, and thinking of moving it to WP. It’s on joomla and has lots of components and mambots, so a lot of coding and sql stuff (SQL is one of my week points).
The problem is that the site, as i said previously is kinda huge – over 5000 content items (posts) and is indexed pretty well in google and yahoo. One of my fears is that if I’ll move it, the url for a certain post will not be the same, so the visitors will get a 404 page, and i’ll loose lots of visitors. I currently have 7000-12000 unique visitors per day.
I’ll move because wordpress is much much easier to use, update and maintain. It also has tags and categories which i find much more useful for my site (a celebrity blog).
What’s your opinion on this? Should I move or is it too risky ?
Thanks!
March 20th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Forgot to mention that the site has about 900 registered users and a forum.
March 20th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Onofrei : My advice, get a professional to do it for you. It’s a very, very big site and you have a very, very big risk to take. Once fully integrated into wordpress, whether by yourself or by others, there will be an adjustment period for search engines to rerecognize the value of each individual article.
You can easily find a professional in sites like odesk, guru.com, elance.com
If I’m not wrong it’s c**eb*.p**tori***.us
March 21st, 2008 at 1:24 am
yea, that’s the site.
did a search ?:)
I just ported another (smaller) site from joomla to WP.
It had about 100 posts, but started getting pretty nice traffic from G and Y!
How much time do you think it will take the SE to accommodate with the new one?
ANyway, thanks for this!:)
March 21st, 2008 at 9:26 am
Onofrei : It will take anytime from 3-6 months.
April 1st, 2008 at 6:37 pm
Hi Chris! I want to know is it useful for Joomla1.5 verson?
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:44 am
I’ll try it out soon..
April 9th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
ALso intersted in going from J! 1.5 to wordpress, finishing off in Drupal.
April 30th, 2008 at 12:31 am
I’m in joomla! 1.5 now and I really want to migrate to WordPress. I’ve had enough. It’s really not a blogging platform. How do you do that? Is it the same with the steps you wrote?
April 30th, 2008 at 9:38 am
rizky : yes it is the same. however, you would need to convert to WordPress version 2.1 first, before upgrading it to the latest WordPress version.
You can get their previous versions from the ‘Release Archives’
http://wordpress.org/download/release-archive/
April 30th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
awesome! I’ll try it and I’ll let you know when it’s done successfully. It won’t delete my articles and posts, will it?
April 30th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
rizky : whatever the case, you should still backup everything and try it locally on your pc first.
May 2nd, 2008 at 4:27 am
Thanks
but i also got stuck at the 2nd step
used the files from here
http://azeemkhan.info/2008/joomla2wordpress-import-wizard-v3/
and its worked no problem
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:24 am
I fail to complete point “Surf to http://your-wp-installation/export and follow the steps to import your articles or links into WordPress.” cos I always get the message Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in /home/gemb05/public_html/export/index.php on line 1.
I’ve contacted Mr Richard Hobbs (as you suggested in one of your comments above) but he hasn’t replied. Any suggestion?
May 2nd, 2008 at 5:55 am
alright, it works till step 2: Query Failed. Or should I downgrade first to 1.0 before migrating?
May 2nd, 2008 at 11:03 am
jason : nice.
rizky : try
http://azeemkhan.info/2008/joomla2wordpress-import-wizard-v3/
May 11th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Thank you.. I will try it.
Nice tutorial
May 13th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
Hi,
It looks like a very good script.
I hope i’ll be able to migrate my current joomla installation 1.x to WordPress 2.5.
Anyone ahave allready tried to migrate to WP 2.5 directly with this script ?
Tia,
Nice Work
May 20th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I tried moving from Joomla to WP 2.5 got the prev noted T_Variable error message, I was hoping it would work but I guess not…if this could be updated to work with 2.5 (2.5.1) it would be awesome.
June 11th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
any tips to make same migration from Joomla to WP latest version?
thanks
cris
June 12th, 2008 at 12:36 am
Migrate from
Joomla CMS v1.0.12
to
Wordpress 2.1
first.
Then update wordpress.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
I have 1.0.11 would that work? – thanks
June 12th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
yes. it would. but in any case, do backup your stuff first and try it locally.
June 17th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Thanks for this chris. though I still have to get the old version for this to work. The db structure of newest version of wordpress 2.5 is completely different, I’ll have to use the Export-Import feature of wordpress.
June 17th, 2008 at 9:49 am
fedmich : you’re welcome =)
June 25th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Thanks for this awesome script !!!
I there a way I can take the exact post address from Joomla to WordPress slug. For example in Joomla I have:
../index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=775&Itemid=29
Instead in WP it convert the title to the post slug. Any idea how to keep it?
Thanks
June 27th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Istvan : Not too sure bout that.
July 30th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I’ve found what might be quite a serious bug in this procedure. Zero’s can disappear! For example,
$169,100,000 in the joomla article
is becoming
$169,1, when it’s imported to wordpress
The script output to the web seems to have the right info in the sql insert string so I’m not sure what’s going on.
Any ideas?
August 7th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Can you please show me the index.php script in the export folder?
August 7th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I request you to please tell me what is the script that is to be created in index.php which is in the export folder. kindly tell me what is that index.php file have
August 7th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Download it here
http://www.mediafire.com/?6dsuxjjm0ig
August 11th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Hi,
First at all its a great thing to make this happen.In spite of the fact that I have more interess in joomla I have seen that its much more easy to get results on the internet by using wordpress.Anyway, I have a running joomla 1.5 site and wanted to change it into wordpress.
I folow the instructions above:
Ä°nstall a 2.2.2 WordPress , make the necessary changes on the config.php file and run it.
It has worked!
Step 1 and step 2 appeares but there is a major problem!
The characters gets lost!
http://v2.geyve.org/wordpress-to-joomla.jpg
ş,ç,ı,ğ,ö,ü characters are used in the turkish language ( Usally needs ISO-8859-9)
I cld not understand why because both of the databases uses utf-8 as defaut character set.
I wonder if there were anything possible to show them corrctly.
August 21st, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Sorry but i have a problem. I want to import from joomla in a diferent url where put a wordpress. My joomla is on http://www.website1.com and my wordpress is on http://www.website2.com.br. How can import?
August 21st, 2008 at 8:59 pm
yavuz : not too sure bout handling foreign languages.
tcleber : one way is to export the database from
website1.com
to
website2.com.br
August 28th, 2008 at 8:29 am
I have WP 2.6 installed in my web server.
Can I export my Joomla 1.0.12 to my WP 2.6 with this script?
August 28th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
try this
http://azeemkhan.info/2008/joomla2wordpress-import-wizard-v3/
September 1st, 2008 at 1:16 am
It looks can solve my problem, I have a joomla site with few hundred posts which I want to turn into wordpress, I am testing this script out tonight.
Thanks for sharing.
October 5th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Hello,
I allways have a “query failed” error??
I can’t resolve it. Could you please help me?
October 6th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Hi,
If I install WP in my server root won’t it write over the Joomla index. php files etc as well as files in the /image directory. Want to make sure – the install IS in the root folder where all the Joomla files are.. or in a subfolder.
Thanks,
October 6th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Hi everyone, Hi Cris,
In the end I wasn’t able to use this export before, there were too many problems arising before when I was trying to import/export. so had to manually make sql files to import comments/posts, etc via phpMyadmin.
I have imported like more than a dozen joomla websites to wp for my clients since July then. so I just wanna say that maybe if there are people out there that are still lost and is having a hard time doing the import process, just wanna tell them that I can help them for a few bucks
anyways, I hope you get the time to make this work on the new version of wp. could really help us a lot
thanks and good luck.
P.S.
I hope there is a subscribe to comment in here so I get notified if you replied to this…
October 6th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Pfff : What are your versions?
gps : what this script does is move data from one database to another. so by right, installing wordpress in your server root overwrites the joomla files. In any case, please backup and try it locally first.
fedmich : i will. =)
October 13th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Same error here. Query Failed. No button to bush
October 13th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Martin : are you using the latest versions?
November 7th, 2008 at 2:48 am
“Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Lost connection to MySQL server during query in /membri/website/export/index.php on line 124
Could not connect”
How can I solve??
I’ve Joomla 1.0.x and WP 2.6.3
November 7th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Carmine : Are your values for host, user, pwd in config.php correct?
November 7th, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Yes!
November 9th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Will it work with Joomla 1.0.15 and WordPress 2.6.3? Thanks.
November 9th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
Carmine : It’s a database connection failure. it has to do with either your host, username or password.
This is how line 124 looks like.
$link = mysql_connect(“$dbhost”, “$dbuser”, “$dbpass”)
or die(“Could not connect”);
November 9th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
(Nancy) I have not tried it out yet. Try
http://azeemkhan.info/2008/joomla2wordpress-import-wizard-v3/
February 28th, 2009 at 6:58 am
hi! I have used mosimage in joomla, and now when exporting it to wordpress I have a lot of mosimage tags, totally useless without images as most of the content are images
how can I easily convert this??? I have searched all over the web for this, and I see you have done it, but it is not included in the code, so it isn’t working
I have tried to fix it with a code line I thought, but it only works when there is only one image per post… if the post has more than one picture in mosimage format, then it breaks
please, help me
thanks in advance
March 2nd, 2009 at 10:56 am
(Vender) Hi Vender. So far, we had to fix the images manually.
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:36 am
I’ve tried this however this doesn’t export the Joomla users.. is there anyway that we port the users too.. or am I asking too much?
TIA
April 8th, 2009 at 2:27 am
If I send you a Joomla theme zipped up, can ANYONE send it back to me as a WordPress Theme I can just plug in and go??
WordPress 2.7.1 –
This is a THEME only – I have no blogs or comments or anything to be included – I want to use a Joomla theme, but the CMS functions of wordpress. This would be a blank theme I can then launch in WP 2.7 and go through and publish my content – no blogs at all – Small business CMS
Please advise ASAP –
tpferri@gmail.com
April 9th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
(mnowluck) Nope. The users are left out.
April 9th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
(Thomas) Not that I know of! Joomla/Wordpress are two totally different monsters. If you wanna get it done, you’d have to pay.
April 9th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
If you want to import categories correctly, in index.php just after line 361, paste:
<?php
$last_id = mysql_insert_id ();
$catquery = “INSERT INTO wp_post2cat (rel_id, post_id, category_id) VALUES (”, $last_id, $wpsection)”;
$catresult = mysql_query($catquery) or die(“category insert Query failed”);
?>
May 25th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Hi there, this worked super fine for me and i have all my articles from Joomla in my WordPress now.
Is there any way I can import the users as well as I really want to chuck Joomla completely?
May 25th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
(Subhramani) Nope. Not at the moment.
June 4th, 2009 at 1:49 am
I did everyting including setting up configure correctly and go to the Mambo2WordPress Import Wizard when I browse to export folder .But I get Query failed message after clicking STEP 2. What is wrong?
Forgot to mention I am trying to import from Joomla 1 CMS content to WordPress 2.7.1
June 4th, 2009 at 11:03 am
(tituslow) Try http://azeemkhan.info/2008/joomla2wordpress-import-wizard-v3/
June 5th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
The problem with migrating users is going to be that Joomla passwords are stored as a salted MD5 hash while WordPress passwords are just a straight MD5 hash. So you could write a simple query to import your users into WordPress… i.e.
INSERT into wp_users (user_login, user_pass, user_nicename, user_email, etc….) VALUES (‘jimmy’, ‘eidj4821y3u5bhdjak:0958327′, ‘Jimmy Carter’, ‘jc@host.com’, etc…..)
but the passwords will all break. Someone who’s more of a geek than me might be able to figure out how to decrypt the salted Joomla passwords and rewrite them as a straight MD5 hash… but that wouldn’t be me
June 24th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
I updated this script for WordPress 2.8 and Joomla! My updated package can be found here
June 24th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
(Jason) Thanks mate. Have included your updated package into the post.
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Hello, I was trying to move a website Joomla to WordPress with this script and I get a line of content and also cut the text, could it be? thanks for the help you can give me
August 21st, 2009 at 9:59 am
I am DYING to get out of Joomla. The script worked great, but it imported comments as posts…Is there a way to change that?
August 21st, 2009 at 11:51 am
(Jen) Nope. I don’t think so. In any case, do try this.
http://jasonanton.com/joomla2wp_export_wizard.zip
August 22nd, 2009 at 4:30 am
Thanks Chris, that’s what I used…Everything moved over great! Now to get out of Joomla. I hate it oh with a passion.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Hello to all,
Strange issue : says that it does not find the wp-config.php. the path is ok and the file is at his right place…
Any idea ?
Thanks
September 17th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
ok, found that the safe mode was on. I turned it off.
Now the script finds the file but…when i try to import i get an “Query failed inserting Section” error.
Any help appreciated, thanks again.
October 1st, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Anyone want to make a few dollars (or Euros or Pounds or Rupis or a chicken and half an hour with my favorite GF or a bottle of absinthe)? I have a website that needs to be converted.
Joomla 1.5.0
to
wordpress 2.8.4
http://www.absintheology.com
I can send over a zip file. Send it back in WP format and I’ll paypal you a princely sum (not super princely – more like a dukely sum if the duke is impecunious) to be agreed upon in advance.
You can reach me through the contact page on the site. Let me know if you can do it and what you think it will cost. I know there will be some fixing to be done after. I can live with that as long as the bulk of it gets transferred. it’s not that big of a site, I can handle a bit of clean up.
Thanks,
Paul
November 12th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
too cool man ! thanks to share good stuff
November 30th, 2009 at 2:27 am
Trying to go from Joomla 1.5.8 to current WordPress, but keep getting Query Failed on Step 2. The table headers are correct, and I’m using Jason Anthon’s updated script for the newer WordPress installs. Is the problem possibly with the newer version of Joomla I’m using?
November 30th, 2009 at 5:34 am
So all I had to do was to add a “wp_categories” to my WordPress database with two fields “id” and “title” and it worked. So far no problems, but I will have to comb through the “new” site and check everything. Thanks!
February 6th, 2010 at 1:38 am
whooo!
it would be so cool if somebody figured out how to migrate the mosimage-stuff as well. isn’t there a mambot/component that’s able to parse the JPG links of the mosimage right into a wp export file?
cheers!
@ellen: what did you have to add that for?
February 6th, 2010 at 3:03 am
ha!
just tried that out – mosimages are converted somehow – however, I found some bugs:
- not all content gets converted (maybe my script running time isnt long enough?) my project has huge amounts of content (>500)
- “Author Alias” isnt converted. I’d love to have new users created in WP according to these aliases. or have it put into an “additional user field” ..any hint?
thanks for this site and any help!
February 6th, 2010 at 3:05 am
ha!
just tried that out – mosimages are converted somehow – however, I found some bugs:
- not all content gets converted (maybe my script running time isnt long enough?) my project has huge amounts of content (>500)
- it seems to be unable to handle german umlauts! article just break wherever there’s an umlaut.
- “Author Alias” isnt converted. I’d love to have new users created in WP according to these aliases. or have it put into an “additional user field” ..any hint?
thanks for this site and any help!
February 6th, 2010 at 3:06 am
ha!
just tried that out – mosimages are converted somehow – however, I found some bugs:
- not all content gets converted (maybe my script running time isnt long enough?) my project has huge amounts of content (>500)
- it seems to be unable to handle german umlauts! article just break wherever there’s an umlaut. but this doesnt occur always; couldnt find the trigger yet.
- “Author Alias” isnt converted. I’d love to have new users created in WP according to these aliases. or have it put into an “additional user field” ..any hint?
thanks for this site and any help!
February 6th, 2010 at 8:21 am
Will this plugin work with a joomla 1.5 install – I really preffer wp myself and would love to convert my sites.
February 6th, 2010 at 9:29 am
Am also looking for a wp theme similar to terrantrubune, anyone suggest one?
April 5th, 2011 at 4:07 am
After I had a problem in connecting with both databases. Now I get the message:
Query Failed in the first step???
April 6th, 2011 at 4:28 am
Hey guys why are you spending ton of time and nerves, just tell gConverter guys and they will care about that within one hour, that’s it, fast, easy and cheap.
April 6th, 2011 at 9:25 am
I’m having a strange problem after connecting the database in step one I get Query failed. What should I check or do?
May 8th, 2011 at 10:46 am
I am not seeing the link to download the script itself. Where can I get it.
Thanks
http://mega.svsupham.com
May 25th, 2011 at 6:10 am
Oh dear, i have just one step and it works great!
Plugin:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/joomla-15-importer/
Description:
This plugin exports articles from a Joomla 1.5 database and imports them as posts into WordPress. It exports the content from a single Joomla category then allows the user to import the content into one or more WordPress categories.
I tried it on http://awesomewallpapers.info and some other sites it worked perfectly.
Thanks for the tutorial.
June 16th, 2011 at 11:17 am
i have converted a few of my sites from joomla to wordpress using http://www.wpconverter.com !
And the outcome was perfect ! M just sharing with you guys ! They are really good with wordpress stuff!
December 8th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
hey chris there is no table like wp_categories in the latest version of wordpress.