Recover Wordpress custom-HTML widget text from local backup?

December 28, 2019 4:11 AM

Installed a new wordpress, and imported content of a prior site successfully, but widget contents (and customized theme) are missing, but I still have a local backup of the full WP directory tree & contents. Can I dig around via notepad and locate a custom-HTML widget to cut-and-paste from, into a new one? Where would they be?

My host decided to switch their hosting-plan structure, crippling my account to force me to move out of it to the new style (and new servers). I have successfully installed a new wordpress and imported the old wordpress into it, except all of my widget data is missing.

I made a full-path directory tree backup to HDD and I can notepad edit the various PHP files, but can't seem to locate where the code of a custom-HTML widget I need to re-instate. Is it possible to cut-and-paste the old widget's HTML from within a notepad editor?

I know there's an exporter plugin, but I don't have access to the old site to install it now, other than to simply browse the directory tree locally and edit the files in notepad/etc.

posted by Quarter Pincher to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

If the custom HTML is implemented as a widget, it should just be a matter of copying the wp-plugins directory (and the themes directory) from the old site to the new one. You can set the theme and make sure widgets are active in the wp admin menus.

WP keeps its configuration and settings in a database, which you’ve hopefully managed to migrate over.
posted by davemee at 4:16 AM on December 28, 2019

Response by poster: I had attempted to migrate the dbase over, and even had the login/pass and imported it thru the in-house host's importer, but it would never take for some reason, and exploring much into that aspect is over-my-head technical, so I'm operating from a fresh MySQL dbase instead =/
posted by Quarter Pincher at 4:26 AM on December 28, 2019

Response by poster: I discovered a workaround -- I was able to locate a copy of my old website design from a web caching site, and was able to view the source of it and found the HTML from that. Silly, but it worked =)
posted by Quarter Pincher at 5:01 AM on December 28, 2019 [1 favorite]

Agonising. Good luck!

(To migrate WP to a new host, you need ① a dump of the database ② login and database settings, which may need changing in /wp-settings.php, and ③ the wp-content directories)
posted by davemee at 5:43 AM on December 28, 2019 [1 favorite]