The Zinn® Migrate plugin

You almost certainly do not need this plugin, and it says so on its own screen.

If your old host gives you FTP, SSH, cPanel, Plesk or DirectAdmin, put those details into the migration form on Zinn® instead. We fetch the site directly, we install nothing on your old server, and there is nothing left behind afterwards. That is faster and safer than packaging the site up, and it is what almost every migration uses.

When you do need it

Some hosts hand you a WordPress login and nothing else — no FTP account, no shell, a control panel with its API switched off, or every port firewalled. If our checker says it could not reach your host on any of the usual ways in, this is the way through.

What it does

1. Install it on the site you are leaving, and open Tools → Move to Zinn®.
2. Press Build the package. It writes your files and a copy of your database into one

archive, a few hundred files at a time so it works on hosts that cut long requests off.

3. When it finishes you get a private link.
4. Paste that link into your migration on Zinn®, choosing An archive of an existing site as

the source.

Treat the link like a password

Anyone who has it can download your whole site, database included. It is a long random address so it cannot be guessed, and the folder cannot be listed — but if you paste it somewhere public, that is the same as publishing your site's database.

The plugin deletes the package automatically 24 hours after it was built, and there is a Delete the package now button. Use it as soon as your migration has finished, then remove the plugin.

Room on the server

Building a package needs roughly as much free disk as your site takes up, on the old server. The screen works this out for you before you start and tells you if it cannot — a server that runs out of space part way through takes the site down, which is why it asks first.

What it cannot do

It cannot restore, and it cannot package a site that is already broken. It is PHP running inside the site it is copying, so the site has to be able to load. A site that is down needs SSH or our managed migration service.