How to open phpMyAdmin and export your database

1. Open your Pressy and go to Databases in the sidebar.
2. Press phpMyAdmin.
3. phpMyAdmin opens in a new tab, already signed in.

There is no database password to look up. The sign-in is created when you click and is never reused.

Exporting

1. In phpMyAdmin, select your database in the left-hand list.
2. Open the Export tab.
3. Leave the method on Quick and the format on SQL.
4. Press Export. The .sql file downloads.

For a large database, use Custom and set compression to gzipped — it downloads far faster and imports the same way.

Importing

1. Select the database in the left-hand list.
2. Open the Import tab.
3. Choose your .sql or .sql.gz file and press Import.

Take a backup before importing. An import over an existing WordPress database replaces what is there.

If the import stops part-way, the file is bigger than PHP will accept: raise upload_max_filesize, post_max_size and max_execution_time, then try again.

Getting your whole site instead

If what you actually want is a copy of everything rather than just the database, Download a copy on the Backups screen gives you files and database together in one .tar.gz — how to do that.

A word of care

phpMyAdmin edits your live database directly, with no undo. Changing a value in wp_options by hand can take the site down instantly.

Take a backup before you change anything here, and prefer a WordPress plugin for search-and-replace over doing it in SQL — WordPress stores some values in a serialised format that breaks if you edit the text naively.