Move a WordPress site to BrewInTH with a ZIP and a .sql file

Your shop's or company's WordPress site has sat on the same host for years. The bill goes up every year, pages load slowly, or the person who set it up has moved on. You'd like to move it, but two things worry you: losing the pictures, and posts that still link to the old domain — because WordPress stores its own address almost everywhere in the database.

This guide moves a WordPress site to BrewInTH using two things you already have: the site's files and a .sql database export, handed over on the Upload & go live page. No server to set up and no coding agent needed. The platform prepares the database, imports it, swaps the old address inside your content, and keeps uploads on persistent storage. We'll also cover the few things that work differently from a typical host.

In short
📦 Put the WordPress folder and the .sql file in one ZIP and hand it over on Upload & go live
🧙 The platform creates MySQL, imports your data and swaps the old address in posts and settings
🖼️ wp-content/uploads lives on persistent storage, so new uploads survive every update
🔌 Plugins and themes can't be installed from wp-admin: ship them in the ZIP and send it again
💡 WordPress needs more room than the Free package; start with Starter or above

Before you start: two files

1. The whole site folder

Download the full WordPress folder from your old host, usually public_html. It must include wp-admin, wp-includes, wp-content and wp-config.php. The folder that matters most is wp-content: it holds your theme, your plugins and every picture on the site.

Zip it with the host's File Manager and download it, or download it over FTP and zip it on your computer.

2. The database as a .sql file

Open phpMyAdmin on the old host, select the WordPress database and click Export. You get one .sql file. A plain .sql file from a backup plugin works too.

Put the .sql file inside the site folder or next to it before you zip; the platform finds it either way.

Can I use a cPanel backup instead?

Yes. If the old host runs cPanel, its full account backup (.tar.gz) can be handed over as it is. The platform takes public_html and the databases in the mysql folder and leaves out cPanel's mail and DNS settings.

Size limits: a ZIP up to 256 MB, 512 MB once unpacked; a cPanel .tar.gz up to 1 GB.

Pick a package with room for WordPress

WordPress's own files are already larger than the Free package's 20 MB of file storage, so start with a paid package:

• Starter (฿99/month), 200 MB of storage: a company or shop site with a modest number of pictures
• Maker (฿1,499/year), 1 GB: a site with years of posts and photos
• Bigger sites: see Growth and Pro on the packages page

Paid packages also let you use your own domain and accept uploads of up to 400 MB through wp-admin (20 MB on Free). Each package is compared in Which BrewInTH package should you pick.

Move WordPress in 4 steps

1. Prepare the ZIP as above: the site folder and the .sql file in the same ZIP.
2. Create a project. Open Upload & go live and, in step 1, click Create a new project (name and address) and give it a name and a web address; there's no technology or database to choose.
3. Hand over the files. Choose the ZIP file tab, pick your file and start. The platform reads the files, creates the database, imports it and builds the site, showing each stage as it goes.
4. Check the site. Once it says it's live, open the home page, click through a few posts, make sure the pictures load, then go to /wp-admin and sign in with your existing WordPress username and password.

The results page has a What the platform did section listing everything it set up, including an "SQL import" line for the database file. If that line says it failed, see the questions below.

What the platform does for WordPress

The platform recognises WordPress from its own files and takes care of the things that usually break a move:

• A MySQL database, created for you, with the whole .sql file imported by the database's own client. Exports from phpMyAdmin go straight in.
• Old Thai encodings. Dumps from older sites that use the tis620 or latin1 charset are converted to UTF-8 before the import, so Thai text comes through intact.
• Database settings. DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD and DB_HOST in wp-config.php are changed to read the platform's values; no editing needed.
• The site address. WordPress reads its address from WP_HOME and WP_SITEURL, which the platform sets to the project's link. At the first import it also replaces the old address in posts, menus and theme settings with the new one, including the values WordPress stores serialized, so pictures in your posts no longer point at the old host.
• HTTPS works from the start, and WordPress knows it sits behind HTTPS, so there are no redirect loops.
• Uploads. wp-content/uploads lives on persistent storage. The pictures in your ZIP are copied there the first time, and anything uploaded later from wp-admin stays when you send a new set of files (more on persistent storage).
• wp-cron. WordPress's scheduled tasks (scheduled posts, for example) run every 5 minutes as a project schedule, without waiting for a visitor.
• Pretty permalinks. The .htaccess rule that sends every address to index.php is handled by the platform, so post links like /2026/10/my-post/ keep working.
• Old-host clutter such as error_log and cgi-bin is left out.

What works differently from a typical host

On BrewInTH the site's files are read-only, except wp-content/uploads. Every version of the site comes only from files you sent, and nothing unexpected can write code into it. The trade-off is that a few things you used to click in wp-admin are done another way.

Plugins, themes and updates

The install and update buttons in wp-admin won't work. Do this instead:

1. Download the plugin or theme from wordpress.org as a ZIP.
2. Unpack it into wp-content/plugins or wp-content/themes of the site folder on your computer.
3. Zip the site folder again and send it to the same project on Upload & go live.
4. In wp-admin, click Activate.

Updating WordPress itself or a plugin works the same way: replace the files on your computer with the new version and send a new ZIP.

Sending mail from the site

Contact forms and WordPress's password-reset mail need SMTP set up through a plugin such as WP Mail SMTP. Ship the plugin in the ZIP and point it at the project's mailbox (more on email on your own domain).

Moving to your own domain

At first the site opens at its BrewInTH address. Test it until you're happy, then connect your domain in the Domains tab. When you make the domain the main link, the platform updates WP_HOME by itself and the project page shows a Release again with the latest settings box; click it.

Links written inside your posts still use the BrewInTH address, which keeps working. If you want them all on your domain, ship the Better Search Replace plugin in the ZIP and use it to swap the address in the database.

Edit and send again without losing data

Each time you send a new ZIP to the same project, the address, posts, comments and pictures uploaded through wp-admin all stay. The platform never imports a .sql file over a database in use on its own.

If you do mean to replace the whole database — say, a final sync after more posts went up on the old host — include the new .sql file in the ZIP. The results page then shows a card with Import this file in place of the database (backup first). The platform always backs up the current database first, and if the import fails it puts the earlier data back by itself.

A tip for moving day: stop posting on the old host from the export until the domain switch, so no post slips through. For moving without downtime, see Move your website to BrewInTH step by step.

FAQ

The SQL import failed. What now?

Read the message on the "SQL import" line of the results page. The usual cause is a .sql file cut short because the export stopped halfway; export again and send it once more. If it still fails, copy the message and send it to the team under Talk to the team. The feature is in BETA and the team can take a look.

The home page loads but the pictures don't

Check that the ZIP really contains wp-content/uploads. Some hosts keep it separately, or File Manager misses files when there are many. Send a ZIP with the full folder to the same project; pictures not yet on the site are copied over.

Do I need to change the table prefix or edit wp-config.php?

No. The platform reads the table prefix (such as wp_) from wp-config.php when it swaps the address in the database, and the database settings are already taken care of.

Can I run WooCommerce?

Ship it in the ZIP like any other plugin. The platform does nothing special for WooCommerce, so test orders and payments fully on the new address before you switch the domain.

Can an AI help look after the WordPress site?

Yes. If you plan to have a coding agent manage it with a link + token, create a new project for the agent: a project an agent has released can no longer be handed over on Upload & go live, so the two paths never overwrite each other.

Summary

Moving WordPress to BrewInTH takes just the site files and a .sql file in one ZIP. The platform creates the database, imports it, swaps the old address in your content, sets up HTTPS and keeps uploads on persistent storage. Plugins, themes and updates go in the ZIP and are sent to the same project, and your data stays every time.

Start moving your WordPress site →

Related articles

• Move your website to BrewInTH step by step, without downtime or lost data
• No coding agent? Upload a ZIP or paste code from a chat AI and go live