One-Click Site Migration

Part of the guide: How to restore a WordPress site without phpMyAdmin or FTP

Part of the guide: Migrate a WordPress site to a new host

Moving a WordPress site to a new host or domain is usually the fiddliest job in WordPress. BackupEase Pro turns it into a pull migration: the new site fetches everything from the old one using a single-use key, imports the database, and rewrites every stored address for you. You never need FTP access to the old server.

How a pull migration works

The destination site connects to the source and pulls everything across. In order, BackupEase Pro:

• Authenticates with a single-use 64-character migration key, valid for 24 hours and revoked the moment the migration succeeds.
• Streams the files and the database in chunks, so a large site never loads into memory at once.
• Imports the database, rewrites every stored address for the new location, and updates wp-config.php.

It uses WP-CLI where it can and falls back to pure PHP on shared hosting. The wizard has three steps: generate a key on the source, configure the destination, then run it.

Step 1: Generate a key on the source site

1. Open the Migration tab on the old site Sign in to the site you are moving away from and open BackupEase › Migration.
2. Generate the key Click Generate Migration Key. The key is 64 characters, marked expires in 24h, and can be revoked at any time with Revoke Key.
3. Copy it, with the source URL Use Copy Key, and note the old site’s address. You will paste both into the new site.

Step 2: Configure the destination site

Set up a clean WordPress install at the new location, activate BackupEase Pro, and open BackupEase › Migration. This step has three lettered sections.

A. Paste Migration Key

1. Enter the source Put the old site’s address in Source Site URL and the key in Migration Key.
2. Connect Click Connect to Source. On success the section collapses to Connected, with a Change button if you need to go back.

B. Smart Find & Replace

Old URL fills in from the source as you connect and is read-only. New URL is this site. Server paths are detected automatically, so there is nothing to type here in a normal move.

Under Show Advanced Path Rules there is one checkbox, Update all URLs in the database to use this site’s domain, ticked by default. Leave it ticked unless you are deliberately making an exact clone, for example a staging copy that must keep answering on the original address. Unticking it imports the database as-is, with no address rewriting at all.

C. Lightning Speed Transfer

This is the SSH section, and it is enabled by default because it is worth using: supplying the source server’s SSH details bypasses HTTP limits and moves the files up to ten times faster. Without it the migration still works, over standard HTTP.

Fill the fields in and press Test SSH Connection before moving on. Do not skip that: a bad SSH configuration discovered halfway through a transfer costs you the whole run.

Generating an SSH key

If your host offers password logins, you can use one and skip this section. Otherwise, or if you would rather not put a password in a form, you need a key pair. The private key goes into BackupEase on the new site. The public key gets authorized on the old server. They are generated together, and they are not interchangeable.

In cPanel

1. Open the SSH key manager On the old site’s cPanel, go to Security › SSH Access, then Manage SSH Keys.
2. Generate a new key Click Generate a New Key. Give it a name you will recognise, such as backupease-migration. Leave the passphrase fields empty. RSA at 2048 or 4096 bits is fine, and so is ED25519 if offered.
3. Authorize the public key Back on Manage SSH Keys, find your new key under Public Keys and click Manage, then Authorize. It must read authorized. A key that exists but is not authorized will not let you in, and this is the step people miss.
4. Copy the private key Under Private Keys, click View/Download on the same key and copy the text exactly as shown, including the -----BEGIN and -----END lines. Ignore the option to convert it for PuTTY: a .ppk file is a different format and BackupEase cannot read it.
5. Paste it into BackupEase On the new site, in section C, choose the SSH Private Key tab and paste the whole key into the box. Then press Test SSH Connection.

In Plesk

Plesk has no key generator of its own. Generate the pair on your own computer with the ssh-keygen recipe below, then paste the public key into Websites & Domains › SSH Access › SSH Keys on the old server, and the private key into BackupEase.

With ssh-keygen, on any computer

Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows with PowerShell or WSL. The empty -N "" is what leaves the passphrase off.

Step 3: Run the migration

1. Review, then start The Ready to Pull summary shows the source, the destination, the file count and whether the transfer will use SSH or HTTP. Check that line reads SSH if you configured it. Then click Run Migration and confirm that it will overwrite the destination.
2. Watch the stages Each stage is marked as it runs and finishes, and the list stays on screen for the whole migration. The percentage sits under the progress bar.
3. Finish On success the page reloads to refresh your session. Log in with the source site’s credentials: the user table came across with everything else.

When the connection fails

After the migration

• Re-save Settings › Permalinks.
• Check URLs, images and forms, then clear any cache or CDN.
• Confirm SSL is active on the new domain.
• Remove the migration key from the old site if you revoked nothing, and delete the SSH key you created for the move.