Each time a new WordPress user is created, relevant information about them is stored in your database. Authorized users can then edit this data from the Users section of the WordPress dashboard. And, if you run an e-commerce website or platform that requires membership, registered users can manage their information from the frontend. Therefore, WordPress offers several options in terms of managing user data. However, if you decide to import or export WordPress user data, you might run into a conundrum. Although this feature is not currently built into WordPress, there are still ways to get what you want. And in this article, we will show you several of them so that you are free to import and export WordPress users whenever you want.
Why You Might Need to Import or Export WordPress Users
There are several reasons why the ability to import or export WordPress user data can be beneficial. For example, you can merge two or more websites that you created or purchased. Since managing multiple websites separately requires you to invest a lot of time and effort, merging them into one can save you time and make overall user and content management easier.
Another very common reason for importing and exporting WordPress users is to have an offline database of your users such as your customers and subscribers. Having a user database at your fingertips is invaluable when building an email list for newsletter campaigns or simply to improve customer relations.
Also, if some of your user information is compromised, the exported list can serve as a data backup. And, if you’re creating a new website, you can migrate user information to speed up the process. Additionally, exporting and then importing users is necessary if you are migrating your website from a multi-site network to a standard WordPress installation.
Now that you have seen some of the reasons and benefits of knowing how to import and export WordPress users, we can move on. In the next part of this article, we will look at the actual steps required to import/export WordPress users.
How to import and export WordPress users
The easiest way to import and export WordPress users is to use an appropriate WordPress plugin. We will cover the use of two different plugins in this article. The process with both is quite simple. Is equivalent to export your WordPress users to a file (most often a .csv file) that you can store wherever you want. Then, WordPress users exported from one site can be uploaded, i.e. imported, to another website. And, in the next section, we’ll show you how to do that using two handy plugins.
Import Export WordPress Users
The Import and export WordPress users plugin is rather user-friendly and simple even if you opt for the free version. It allows you to import WordPress users of all user roles including WooCommerce customers. However, only default WordPress user fields will be imported.
This plugin also has a premium version which offers additional features. These include importing full WooCommerce customer details, changing some of the values while importing customers, sending emails to new users, running import cron jobs /export, a premium support service and compatibility with plugins such as BuddyPress or Advanced Custom Fields, among others.
After installing the plugin, go to Users > Import Users Export, which will place you in the User/customer export tongue. From here, you can adjust the export options, such as user roles and user data fields, i.e. columns, that you want to export. After setting the options according to your needs, press the button Export users bottom button.
After waiting a bit for the process to complete, users will be exported to a .csv file. It will automatically be named Customer-Export-timestamp.csv. The timestamp part will be replaced with an appropriate timestamp of when the export was executed. You can rename this file, if you wish, after storing it on your computer.
To import previously exported users, install the same plugin on your other website, and go to Users > Import Users Export. Then open the User/customer import tongue. Click on the Choose file button and a dialog box will open where you need to select a .csv file you want to import. After, press the Download file and import button below.
You can go to Users > All Users to review or edit all imported users, after that.
Import and export users and customers
The Import and export users and customers plugin is a very feature-rich free WordPress plugin. It imports and exports all fields of all possible WordPress users in your database, including WooCommerce customers. This plugin allows you to assign default user roles or edit existing roles on import, send email to new or edited users and manage the content of that email, perform cron jobs and receive support through a support forum, among others. It is also equipped with a list of hooks that you can use to further extend its functionality. And its developers have made sure that it is compatible with a number of other plugins such as BuddyPress and Paid Memberships Pro, for example.
After installing the plugin, go to Tools > Import and Export Users and Customers. Then open the Export tongue. You can choose to export users by their role or by the period of their creation. Choose the settings you want and adjust them accordingly. Then to upload the .csv file with WordPress users, press the To download bottom button.
This will export WordPress users to a file named export-users.csv, but you can rename it later if you want.
If you later want to import these WordPress users to another website, you need to install the same plugin there. Then go to Tools > Import and Export Users and Customers, and open the Import tongue. Click on the Choose file button and, from the file dialog that opens, select a .csv file you want to import.
Once you have selected the file, you can adjust the import options according to your needs. These options include setting a default role for each user you import, sending emails to users whose accounts have been created or updated, deleting existing users or changing their roles, etc. After setting everything to your preference, press the button. Start import button basically.
Shortly after, you will see a table of imported users, with all their relevant data. You can scroll down where you will see a success message with the here to see the results connect.
Clicking this link will take you to the Users > All Users section, where you can review or edit your imported users.
Final Thoughts
Whether it’s merging websites, using data to improve your relationship with your customers or subscribers, or something else, knowing how to export WordPress users and import them elsewhere is very useful. Although importing or exporting users is not a default feature in WordPress, you can find many plugins for this purpose. To help you, we’ve highlighted two different plugins in this article and described how to use them. If you followed the steps carefully, we have no doubt that you were also successful in exporting and importing WordPress users into your own site. Feel free to bookmark this article for future use, if you anticipate needing the same functionality in the future.
