Move a live WordPress site to strackt

If the site you want to bring over is online right now, you don't have to export it. strackt can read it directly and build the site on your server — nothing gets packaged on your current host, and nothing passes through your laptop.

This is the alternative to uploading an export, which is described in Add a WordPress site. Both end in the same place; this one saves you the archive.

This route is newer than the archive upload and still settling. If you'd rather take the well-trodden path, export an archive and upload it instead — the result is identical.

Before you start

Your existing site needs to be:

• served over https, and
• reachable from the public internet — a site only visible on your office network or on localhost can't be read.

You'll also need to be able to install a plugin on it.

Connect the site

1. Add an application, choose WordPress, then Import an existing site.
2. Choose Connect my live site instead of uploading an archive.
3. strackt shows you a one-time connection token. Copy it.
4. On your existing site, install the strackt migration plugin and open the page it adds under Tools.
5. Paste the token and submit.

That's the whole handshake. Your site tells strackt where it is, strackt confirms the token, and the connection opens.

What strackt can and can't do through the connection

The connection is read-only and time-limited. strackt can list your files, read them, and read your database tables. It cannot write anything to your site.

The plugin only answers while the connection is open. Once it expires it stops responding entirely, and a site with an expired plugin looks exactly like a site with no plugin at all.

strackt closes the connection once the new site has landed, and also if the transfer fails. If your site can't be reached at that moment, the connection closes at its deadline instead — 72 hours from when you connected it.

The same deadline covers the case where you connect a site and never finish: change your mind, or leave the wizard, and the connection closes on its own.

Removing the strackt migration plugin from your existing site is the one step that closes it immediately, whatever else happened. Do that once you're done and you don't have to think about any of the above.

While it copies

The wizard shows real progress — how much has moved, not just a spinner.

If the transfer is interrupted, it picks up where it stopped rather than starting again. A large site can take a while; you don't need to keep the page open for it to continue.

Sites that can't come across this way

Some sites are refused up front, before anything is copied — the same list that applies to archive uploads:

• Multisite networks
• Sites strackt can't read the database from
• Sites whose address it can't determine or verify
• Sites too large for the import

If your plugin copy is out of date, you'll be asked to update it before the transfer starts.

If something goes wrong

You have two ways forward, both offered in the wizard:

• Generate a new token and reconnect. This replaces the previous connection and starts a fresh copy.
• Upload an archive instead, falling back to the manual route.

Nothing is left half-imported — a failed transfer leaves the new site unbuilt rather than partly built.

After the site lands

The imported site behaves exactly like any other imported WordPress site. In particular, if your original site is still running, the copy is deliberately muted: it won't send email and asks search engines not to index it, so it can't contact your customers or compete with the original. Removing the strackt-clone-safety plugin from the new site lifts that when you're ready — see Add a WordPress site for the detail.

Finish the move

• Point your domain at the new site with Domains and SSL
• Check your restore points — one is taken for you when the import lands
• Let strackt handle updates from here: Keep WordPress updated