Remove WPEngine from WordPress Website

In this article I will cover how to clean up a migrated website away from WPEngine to a local or new website hosting provider.

While I have no issues with the WPEngine company or hosting service, when trying to migrate a website away from their platform they leave some unnecessary files behind, specifically within your wp-content and mu-plugins directories.

If you choose to migrate away from WP Engine or need to setup a local development environment, you’ll need to follow these steps in order to ensure success.

WPEngine Website Migration Process

WPEngine recommends the following steps when copying your WPEngine website to another hosting environment (for instance, copying to a local environment or another web host):

• Create a backup checkpoint and download the generated zip file.
• Once you receive the email containing your zip file, open the zip and delete the following:
  • wp-content/advanced-cache.php
  • wp-content/object-cache.php
  • wp-content/mu-plugins/wpengine-common/
  • wp-content/mu-plugins/force-strong-passwords/
  • wp-content/mu-plugins/wpe-wp-sign-on-plugin/
  • wp-content/mu-plugins/mu-plugin.php
  • wp-content/mu-plugins/slt-force-strong-passwords.php
  • wp-content/mu-plugins/spinupwp-debug-log-path.php
  • wp-content/mu-plugins/wpe-cache-plugin.php
  • wp-content/mu-plugins/wpe-elasticpress-autosuggest-logger.php
  • wp-content/mu-plugins/wpe-wp-sign-on-plugin.php
  • wp-content/mu-plugins/wpengine-security-auditor.php
• Upload the rest of the files to the new web site host or local environment
• Your database can be found at wp-content/mysql.sql
  • You will want to retain a copy of this file on your local computer until you are confident all content was imported correctly.
    • After this is completed, remove the wp-content/mysql.sql file from your new hosting environment.
• (Optional) Replace wp-config.php with the default WordPress template.
  • Be sure to include your new site’s database credentials.
• (Optional) You may choose to run a search and replace on your database to update any remaining instances of your live domain or environment.wpengine.com temporary address.

After the above steps have been successfully completed your website should be up and running on your new local or remote environment.

Conclusion

I welcome your thoughts, questions or suggestions on my article on how to remove WPEngine from your migrated WordPress website.

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Let me know if you found any errors within my article or if I may further assist you by answering any additional questions you may have.