Absolutely ADORE this plugin. Completely changed my workflows, creativity and more.
That said, there’s an area that I find completely underwhelming — migrating content.
Moving field groups is easy, but not necessarily content. For instance I have a few sites that I need to move where I need to manually export and import content, rather than do a database clone.
Biggest issue I have is with images. Just migrated some pages and half the images didn’t import. Tried lots of different searches on the forum but couldn’t find anything useful. Hoping for tips on best way to accomplish this. Would be awesome if ACF wrote a tool for this, since the wordpress xml export/import process doesn’t seem to work well with ACF fields.
Most export/import tools will not work. In fact, if you’re using the WP export/import it won’t do images correctly unless you export/import an entire site.
If you must export/import than the only suggestion I have is WP All Import/Export Pro versions that will work with ACF. You can create custom filters on the export to get images and format them correctly for the import and the import is aware of ACF fields and will import the content correctly.
I can’t help you more because I have never had a need to export/import, when I migrate a site it is always a complete site migration where I export/import the entire DB.
I am having a similar problem with image fields. I have 700 posts and I would like to update an ACF image field with an image that is already in my media library.
I have WP all import pro but still can’t get this to work and can’t find any information about it. The posts above are the most useful so far.
Have you got the ACF add-on for WP All Import?
How are you trying to import?
Is it just the images you need to update or do you need to import a post and image?
Using the default tools to import posts, I found this plugin worked really well
Quite frustrating that there’s no way to migrate any ACF based content without either cloning the entire site or using a $300 plugin. Massive design flaw IMHO.
If you’re able to pass this on to the dev team @hube2 that would be great. (Or I can submit a request if that’s not possible.)
This is always going to be in issue when using the standard WP export/import system. This is due to the fact that images/media are stored as a post with an ID generated when the post is imported. That the WP export/import for media has always been lacking but ACf stores an image ID and there is nothing in any free export/import that will make sure that the new ID was set in the custom fields.
I honestly can’t see that this is something fixable by the ACF devs, but you can submit a ticket to them. I’m sure it will not be the first on on this topic.
I gave up on exporting/importing a long, long time ago.
I use BackWPup Pro for moving files. This plugin allows me to FTP the .zip file directly to the root of the new location for the site and I can unzip it directly on the server on the hosting I use. If that’s not possible then I just download all the files and upload them to the new location. Then I do an export of the DB using phpMyAdmin and import that to the new DB and I use a tool that is aware of serialized data to do a search and replace on the domain name if necessary. Migrating sites is not usually something I do. When I build a new site 99% of the I build it where it will be hosted using a dev sub domain or an alias domain so I don’t have to move anything. I really hate migrating sites, I find it a huge waste of time. If I can do it using BackWPup it generally very little time, less time than doing an export/import.
Sometimes we outsource work to other devs and it always confuses me why they won’t use our hosting to build a site. I set up the hosting, I give them access, I even set up WP for them, all they need to do is the custom dev right there and let me take care of the rest…. then they go and insist on building it on their own hosting and then migrating it over, which 90% of the time ends with things not working and them needing to fix it.
This plugin might help you. This exports and imports images from one site to another site.
Simple Export Import for ACF Data
