Create a WordPress staging site with WP Toolkit and push your changes live

A staging site is a private copy of your WordPress website where you can try out a redesign, new plugins or updates without touching your live site. When you're happy with it, you copy the changes back to the live site.

On our hosting, use WP Toolkit in cPanel for this. We don't recommend Softaculous's staging feature for WordPress, as its copies can fail or change settings in ways that are hard to undo.

Before you start

• Check you have enough disk space. A staging site is a full copy of your files and database, so you need free space at least the size of your current site. If your account runs out of space part-way through, the clone fails with a "disk quota exceeded" error and leaves a half-finished copy behind. Check your usage on your service page under Services → My Services (https://www.hooplahosting.co.nz/client/clientarea.php?action=services). If you need more room, see Disk space full or nearly full or upgrade from Upgrade/Downgrade on the same page.
• Take a backup of the live site, or make sure you know how to restore one. See Restore files, databases or email from a backup.
• Make sure your live site is in WP Toolkit. If it isn't listed, click Scan in WP Toolkit to find it.

Step 1: Create the staging copy

1. Open your hosting service under Services → My Services and click Log in to cPanel.
2. Open WP Toolkit (type it in the cPanel search bar).
3. Find your live site and click Clone.
4. Choose where the copy goes. A new subdomain such as staging.yourdomain.co.nz is the tidiest option. Avoid putting it in a subfolder of your live site.
5. Leave the suggested database name, or type your own.
6. Click Start and wait for it to finish, then click Close.

The staging site now appears in WP Toolkit as a separate site. WP Toolkit updates the copy's web address for you, so links and logins on the staging site point to the staging address. Your WordPress usernames and passwords are the same as on the live site.

Give our free SSL a few hours to cover the new subdomain. Until then, your browser may show a "Not secure" warning. See AutoSSL: install or fix your free SSL.

Step 2: Keep the staging site private

• In WP Toolkit, check that Search engine indexing is turned off for the staging site, so Google doesn't list a duplicate of your website.
• To stop anyone else seeing it, add a password to the staging folder. See Password-protect a folder on your website.

Step 3: Make and test your changes

Work on the staging site as normal. Before you push it live, check the pages that matter most: the home page, contact forms, checkout and the WordPress admin area.

Your live site keeps running while you work. Any new orders, form entries, comments or user sign-ups on the live site won't be on the staging copy. Keep that in mind in step 4.

Step 4: Push the changes to your live site

1. In WP Toolkit, find the staging site and click Copy Data.
2. Under the destination, choose your live site. Double-check this, because the destination is the site that gets overwritten.
3. Choose what to copy:
   • Files and database: for a redesign or a site with no orders or sign-ups.
   • Files only: for theme or plugin code changes where the content hasn't changed.
   • Selected database tables: for shops and membership sites. Leave out the tables that hold orders, customers and users so the live data isn't replaced. Ask your developer which tables to leave out if you're unsure.
4. Choose whether files that were changed or deleted on staging should also be replaced or removed on the live site.
5. Make sure Create a restore point is ticked. This lets you undo the copy if something goes wrong.
6. Click Start.

When it's finished:

• Clear your caches. See Website changes not showing?
• Check Search engine indexing is turned on for the live site in WP Toolkit.
• Log in to the live site and check it over.

Undo a copy

If the live site breaks after copying, open the live site in WP Toolkit and use Restore or Back up/Restore to roll back to the restore point created before the copy. You can also restore from our daily backups.

Troubleshooting

• "Disk quota exceeded" while cloning: free up space or upgrade your plan, delete the half-finished clone in WP Toolkit (click the menu next to it and choose Remove), then clone again.
• "There has been a critical error" or a 500 error after copying: a plugin is usually to blame. Caching, security and firewall plugins (such as MalCare or Wordfence) are common culprits straight after a copy. In WP Toolkit, open the site's Plugins tab and switch off caching and security plugins, then try again. Your error log will name the plugin causing it. See Find and read your website error logs.
• Logging in sends you to the wrong address: check that you copied from staging to live, not the other way round, and that the site addresses under Settings → General in WordPress are correct. If you have more than one domain pointing at the same site, make sure you're using the main one.
• WP Toolkit's "Log in" opens an http:// page: the site's SSL isn't ready yet. Wait for AutoSSL to issue the certificate rather than entering your password over an insecure connection.
• Finished with staging? Remove it from WP Toolkit so it doesn't keep using disk space or trigger security alerts for out-of-date plugins.

Need help?

If a clone or copy fails, open a support ticket from Support → Open Ticket. Tell us the live and staging addresses, which direction you were copying, and the exact error message, and we'll take a look.