How to Migrate Joomla to WordPress

November 01, 2010 | Written by Steve Burge

This tutorial will show you how to migrate a Joomla 1.5 site to WordPress 3.1.

We're going to do this with an existing Joomla site and a brand-new WordPress site.

There are two things to note before we start:

This will move all of your Joomla articles and convert them into WordPress posts. However, it won't move any components, templates, modules or plugins. Those will need to be re-created on your WordPress site.
Both the Joomla and WordPress sites need to be on the same database server. This won't migrate sites if they are hosted separately.

Delete All Existing WordPress Content

First we need to make room in order to import all our Joomla articles. So, even though we're starting with a brand-new WordPress site, we need to make sure that all existing content is deleted:

Go to the Posts tab and delete all the all existing posts.

Go to the Posts >> Categories tab and delete all the all existing categories.

Go to the Pages tab and delete all the all existing pages.

Install Joomla/Mambo To WordPress Migrator

Go to the Plugins tab and search for the "Joomla/Mambo To WordPress Migrator". That is the plugin we're going to use to move our articles to WordPress. Install and activate that plugin.

You'll find the settings for the Joomla/Mambo To WordPress Migrator by going to the Settings >> Joomla2WP tab.

Configuring Joomla2WP

Enter all of the database information for your Joomla and WordPress sites. If you don't know what it is, you can visit your files and take the information from Joomla's configuration.php and WordPress' wp-config.php.

It's important to note that there is only room for one login here. Joomla2WP requires that both site been on the same server, but normally they will have different logins. You'll need to go to your hosting account and either give your "MySQL Server User" access to both the Joomla and WordPress databases.

Success!

If everything has gone smoothly, Joomla2WP will list of all the categories it has moved and it will show a "Migration done" message. Visit the front of your site and you should see all of your Joomla articles now converted to WordPress posts:

Comments

#1 djneokc 2010-11-06 19:06

Why would you want to move from Joomla to Word Press?

#2 kl6H_steve 2010-11-07 13:29

There are some valid reasons, I can also think of some valid reasons to move from WP to Joomla.

Why Joomla to WP? Here are two ideas:

1) The client / user might just be more comfortable using WP or might just not know Joomla at all
2) WP does have better features in some areas such as multisites

#3 Richard B 2010-11-24 16:40

Just a note that you have to press, or at least I had to, the update options button after inserting my info. Otherwise you receive an error.

#4 jim d 2010-12-05 10:05

how do you get the images to resolve that are in the original articles? i successfully migrated the articles from joomla to WP but none of the images show up no matter where i put the images folder. the posts reference images using the code: src="/images/st ories/[filename ]" any suggestions where to put my image folder on the wordpress site?

#5 Pelin 2011-01-19 10:14

Nicely done! I love this plugin. Thanks for sharing.

#6 Dan 2011-01-24 16:18

WP is much easier to maintain, which means a lower total cost of ownership. All additions and updates to its core and plugins are pushed to the administrators on the backend for one-click upgrades.

WP 3.0+ beats Joomla with its core multisite capability, SEO readiness, new menu and custom content type capabilities, its superior themes, its child theme system, post version control, category multimapping, core tagging and comments, URL aliasing and search that works.

If you can do it in WP, you should because it will be simpler and less onerous to maintain. The only reason for using Joomla now is that Drupal is still harder for people to learn and operate. If you need complex, specialized applications (even something as simple as a calendar or forum) WP is not there yet, but Joomla has many options.

#7 diane 2011-02-13 15:24

Will the Joomla site remain intact?

#8 Steve Mitch 2011-03-22 21:48

Hi
I assume the method above does not import the joomla design into wordpress?

I have a joomla theme template and would like to have the template for a new wordpress installation.

is there a relatively easy way i can do this so my wordpress site design has the joomla look and design

many thanks
Steve

#9 wildedays 2011-04-16 22:27

This worked so well! Thank you so much!

I built a couple of sites in Joomla (which I love and am more familiar with), but when I wanted to turn them over to others to run, they didn't know how to use Joomla and so migrating them using these instructions worked great.

I really appreciate the detailed article. You guys are the best!

:) Dana

#10 Nick 2011-04-19 06:51

Hi Diane,

Yes, the Joomla site will remain intact.

Sorry for the delay in responding. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask in the support forum where we answer everything within a day. It's tough keeping track of all the blog comments as we have hundreds of blog posts.

Kind regards,
Nick

#11 Nick 2011-04-19 06:52

You're welcome, Pelin! :)

#12 Nick 2011-04-19 06:52

Hi Jim,

Sorry for the delay in responding. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask in the support forum where we answer everything within a day. It's tough keeping track of all the blog comments as we have hundreds of blog posts.

Kind regards,
Nick

#13 Nick 2011-04-19 06:53

You're very welcome, Dana! :)

Kind regards,
Nick

#14 Nick 2011-04-19 06:59

Hi Dan,

We appreciate your thoughtful comments! It's good to get some discussion like this! :)

Yes, each of CMSs have their own strengths and weaknesses. By far the biggest advantage of WP is its ease of use which is manifested through out the CMS, while Joomla's biggest strength is it's 3rd party extensions.

Kind regards,
Nick

#15 Nick 2011-04-19 07:01

Hi Richard,

Yes, that's definitely a must.

Kind regards,
Nick

#16 Nick 2011-04-19 07:03

Hi Steve,

Correct, this will move all of your Joomla articles and convert them into WordPress posts. However, it won't move any components, templates (design), modules or plugins. Those will need to be re-created on your WordPress site.

You should check with your template provider as many that create Joomla templates also have a Wordpress theme with the same design.

Kind regards,
Nick

#17 testphp testphp 2011-06-07 09:46

Hi sir , i have install the Joomla To WordPress Migrator plugin in site , i want to migrate the joomla site( which is using joomfish) which is built in 5 more language except the English , so how other language content migrate into wordpress.

if some one have any idea . how to do that ?
share with me ..

thanks

#18 rdan 2011-06-27 13:41

hi, great tutorial! but my problem lies with No 2 requirement, how do i move posts in joomla hosted from another site into a wordpress site hosted in a different server. Do i save the database from the joomla site and import it to the new wordpress? any help would be appreciated...

#19 dom 2011-07-07 15:08

I have a slightly different problem. I need to migrate only my blog posts from joomla to wordpress. I have rewritten the other content for the new wordpress site. Im using MyBlog component for Joomla. Is there a way to do this still using Mambots?

#20 wpro 2011-07-10 14:43

where's the link of support forum?

#21 steve 2011-07-10 17:23

Hi wpro - the forum is at ostraining.com/forum and is available to our site's members.

#22 zSmit 2011-07-15 12:54

Thanks Steve!
I'm sorry but this plugin hasn't satisfied me, do you know how many problems and derelictions you are faced with these plugins: there isn't comment, tag and image migration, problems with other languages, limited features, no filter of post content, it migrates ton of unnecessary codes, problem with db connection (if J and WP are in diff server), no good support, no image source url correction, and other lots of things. I'd prefer to use some prof services to do it with small cost.

#23 mian majid 2011-08-06 20:32

i tries to migrate using Vertrigo, both project on same server, but i m facing this error.........a ny suggestion plz ???
=========================================
Unknown column 'section' in 'where clause'
Warning: mysql_fetch_arr ay(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in D:\majid-work\w ordpress\wp-con tent\plugins\jo omla-to-wordpre ss-migrator\joo mla2wp-mig.php on line 609

Warning: mysql_free_resu lt(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in D:\majid-work\w ordpress\wp-con tent\plugins\jo omla-to-wordpre ss-migrator\joo mla2wp-mig.php on line 616

Found 0 Categories...

User Migration

migrate user: admin ---- d

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in D:\majid-work\w ordpress\wp-con tent\plugins\jo omla-to-wordpre ss-migrator\joo mla2wp-mig.php on line 578

#24 Amnuai Beckenham 2011-08-15 13:57

Will the plugin transfer all the comments images and videos as well?

#25 Amnuai Beckenham 2011-08-15 13:58

Will this plugin move all the comments, images and videos as well from Joomla to WP?

#26 Nick 2011-08-15 17:38

Sorry for the delay in responding. If you have any support questions, feel free to ask in the support forum where we answer everything within a day. It's tough keeping track of all the blog comments as we have hundreds of blog posts.

Kind regards,
Nick

#27 Nick 2011-08-15 17:39

#28 Nick 2011-08-15 17:39

#29 Nick 2011-08-15 17:39

#30 Nick 2011-08-15 17:39

#31 Nick 2011-08-15 17:40

Hi and welcome, Amnuai!

Sorry for the inconvenience, but if you're a student at OSTraining, could you copy and paste this into the support forum so one of our support techs can look into it for you?

Please see the support FAQ for more information:
www.ostraining.com/.../

Kind regards,
Nick

#32 Nick 2011-08-15 17:40

#33 Masoudline 2011-09-03 10:20

hi
I can migrate from joomla to wordpress successfully
but i have a problem
my articles ,users and my categories transfered very well but its show ?????????? means show (?).
my article language is persian-arabic and I set utf8 in setting but not working.
please help me to solve this problem
Thanks A lot

#34 Nick 2011-09-03 19:43

Hi and welcome, Masoudline!

Sorry for the inconvenience, but if you're a student at OSTraining, could you copy and paste this into the support forum so one of our support techs can look into it for you? All you have to do is log in at www.ostraining.com and click on Support Forum in the main menu.

Please see the support FAQ for more information:
www.ostraining.com/.../

Kind regards,
Nick

#35 Tee 2011-09-27 17:15

Just wanted to say thank you! This post saved me hours of work :)

#36 Nick 2011-09-28 00:43

You're welcome, Tee! I'm glad we could help :)

You should consider becoming a student as you'll learn a lot more and save your days/weeks of work :)

Kind regards,
Nick

#37 Dan 2011-09-29 14:46

There are several other Joomla migration plugins for WP. Some do not require the WP destination to be empty of categories and articles. Do you know if they are reliable?

#38 Nick 2011-09-29 21:26

Hi Dan,

Sorry, I haven't used them. A good way to get an idea is to check out their support forum (if they have one) and also their reviews at wordpress.org

Kind regards,
Nick

#39 Amy p 2011-11-23 04:52

I have made my website in joomla using easyblog so I have no joomla articles, just easyblog articles. However, I'd like to migrate over to wordpress. Do you know if I can do this? Does it migrate my comments across too?

#40 Nick 2011-11-23 17:39

Hi Amy,

Unfortunately, this won't for easyblog. You'd need a custom script to be able to migrate easy blog, since there isn't one available (as far as I'm aware).

Kind regards,
Nick

#41 Matt 2012-01-16 02:55

Wow... this is great..

I have been looking for this for months... we are now hand moving over a 1500 post website. Eeek.

Great work

#42 Nick 2012-01-16 03:56

Thanks Matt! We're glad we could help. Good luck moving over the site. Hope it all goes well for you :)

Kind regards,
Nick

#43 Dusan 2012-02-06 10:14

Nice plugin, but isnt working for me :/

I am using wamp local server,settings are localhost, root, without password, name of the db is correct (i use both joomla and wp correctly). But I get this message "MySQL Connection and Table Data not complete !!!. "
Joomla version is 1.5.22 and wp is 3.3.1

Any advice?

#44 Nick 2012-02-07 15:01

Hi and welcome, Dusan!

We would love to help you out with this, however it would require some addition information to narrow down the issue. If you are a student at OSTraining.com, please log into the support forum (www.ostraining.com/.../) and post the question in there, so that one of our support techs can look into it for you. If you’re not a student, I hope you’ll consider becoming one, so that we can give you the attention you deserve. You can find out more about our online class at www.ostraining.com/online

Kind regards,
Nick

#45 Dalose 2012-03-09 12:49

I tried this method, but it doesn't convert all component listed on gConverter's site: gconverter.com/.../ . It seems I'll ask gConverter guys to help me.

#46 Milauskas 2012-03-15 21:35

Hi All, I just did a conversion from Joomla to WP using the plugin. I don't know if I missed something or did something wrong. Things seemed to be successful, but all I've got now are categories (I don't know if they're called pages in Joomla) but I wanted the Joomla pages to show up as pages in WP.

I tried the "single server" option and saved settings but when I went to migrate I got the "MySQL Connection and Table Data not complete" error.

At first I thought maybe it was because I couldn't remove the Uncategorized category but still got it after deleting it through phpMyAdmin, so I tried the "separate servers" option. This eventually worked.

However, I only have categories in WP now and now pages. Did I do something wrong?

#47 timotewdotcom 2012-07-05 23:46

it is too risky. you may end up with more problems like . error pages, all your link will need to be re index by search engines, problem with your images and you loose a lot of traffics atleast for about a month before you regain balance with hardworking, you can even loose links that are not to your homepage and you will have lower search rankings.

#48 Carole 2012-07-15 17:13

It didn't work. Does it migrate 2.5? Is there a detailed explanation on what to put in the set up boxes? I'm as dumb as a rock, and joomla is way too hard.

#49 Gary K 2012-11-20 00:57

Does this leave the original Joomla database intact, or does it convert the DB completely?

#50 Thomas M 2012-12-20 02:26

Thanks for the detailed article. But plugin doest work for my Joomla 2.5 :(

#51 Gary K 2012-12-20 04:03

Will the plugin delete the articles in the original Joomla site, or simply migrate them to the new WordPress site? I will backup the original Joomla DB, but will be building the WP site in a sub-directory on the same domain and would like to preserve the original just in case...

#52 Ahmad Rosidi 2013-03-21 13:46

Cannot use string offset as an array in /home/arexxx/pu blic_html/smasp rxxxx.com/wwv/w p-content/plugi ns/joomla-to-wo rdpress-migrato r/joomla2wp-mig .php on line 1628

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