1. Login to your LocalHost Wordpress website, install and activate Duplicator plugin.

2. Then Go To Duplicator → Packages → Create New package.

3. Then Download installer.php and Archive.
4. Then use FTP or CPANEL to upload both the files into your web host provider root directory
public_html folder .
5. Open a web browser and type http://your-domain/installer.php to run installer file. Then
you'll see a deployment page.
6. Then, Create new database in your new hosting account and enter that database details in
deployment page.
7. Then, Click Test Database.
8. Follow Screen Instructions, Then Duplicator will Migrate Your website in few minutes.
9. Now, update Domain Name Server to complete migration.
10. Test Your Site.

There are several methods are available to you can migrate your website from one server
to another or from locally developed or LocalHost website to live server. In this guide, I will
show you, the detail steps involved to move your website using a well-known plugin called
‘Duplicator’. I have already tested and used this plugin to migrate several of my websites
before and usually it takes only few minutes to complete the migration without any
problem.

Duplicator Plugin can be used to:

 Migrate WordPress site from one server to another

 Migrate locally developer WordPress website to live server
 Clone live server WordPress site on your local desktop server.

For this tutorial, I am going to show you, how I migrated one of my client’s locally
developed website to live server. For your easy understanding the video guide of the
migration procedure is also given here.
Preparing packages and Installer file before migration:
  xtra large files (Tip: You can use Duplicator plugin to large files in your
WordPress media directory)
 Any other warnings

If you see any error, fix it and click on rerun scan to let Duplicator plugin scan
your site again. From my experience, I ended up deleting few extra large files
which I have added two years back, and that reduced the overall size of my
package. (See the below screenshot for my scan result)

Click on Build and Duplicator plugin will create a package which contains installer
file and an archive file. Depending on the size of your WordPress site, it may take
few seconds to minutes.
You need to download both Installer and Archive file, and these are the only
files which you need to move to new server. Once you are done downloading
both the file, let’s move to the new server where we will be doing few things to
complete our WordPress server migration.

Preparing new Hosting Server for Migration:

One good thing about Duplicator plugin is; you don’t need to install WordPress
on the new server. This plugin will do everything & you just need to create a new
database and user.
In this scenario, I’m keeping the same domain name and just changing my
hosting server.
You can use the same step (Just change the domain name) to change hosting
and your WordPress site domain name.
On your new hosting server you need to do following things:

 Create a Database, Add a user to the database with full privilege. Note
down the database name, Database user and password locally. We
will need it in the next step. If your new server is typical cPanel
hosting, you can read this guide to learn creating the database
manually.
 Upload both installer and Archive file (.zip format): Access your new
hosting server via FTP and upload the installer and archive file at the
root location of your domain on the new server.

Once you are done with this, you need to open your new server I.P. with
installer.php at the end. What I did here is, I edited my local computer hosts file
to map the domain name to new I.P, this made working easier. If you are on Mac
System, you can read this guide to edit the hosts file, and Windows users
can use this guide.
In this case, I simply accessed wpfreesetup.com/installer.php, and this is what
my screen looked like:

The important thing here is:

You need to add your new database details and click on Test connection to
see if everything is working fine or not. In a majority of the cases, your host would
be localhost and rest database detail will be from the database you just created
on the new server.
Click on next, and you will see a screen like this:
In the above screen, I just made one change in URL field. As this plugin was
picking up the temporary URL, so I changed it to the domain name
(http://WPfreesetup.com), and that’s it! Click on next, and if you are done
everything right way, your existing WordPress site is migrated to new server.

You should also keep your FTP login handy to check if everything is at proper
place or not. If for any reason, this step failed to migrate the site, you can repeat
the process on the new server and make it work. (Since I was doing it for the first
time, it took me two attempts to make the successful migration).
Once you are satisfied, you should update your domain name server to point to
your new hosting server. When you will login to your new server WordPress
dashboard, Duplicator plugin will also ask you to remove all existing dump files
which we used to migrate WordPress site from old hosting to new hosting.

Additionally, you should check your FTP and if you notice any dump file, get rid
of it. While performing this migration, I got few errors and here is how I fixed
them:
Error connecting database:

 In the first attempt somehow my database was not uploaded and I had
to repeat the process to fix it. If you get this error, you might like to
check if tables are added into the new database and if WP-config.php
file has correct database credential or not. You can repeat the process
from beginning to fix this.
 ionCube Encoder for PHP 5: This is the most common error which you
might face when changing the WordPress server. I simply disabled the
plugin for time-being to move ahead with the process. You can ask
your new hosting company or plugin developer for the solution.

Here is a video tutorial for using Duplicator plugin:

Subscribe on Youtube
 
Conclusion: Duplicator plugin makes it easy to migrate
WordPress
After using Duplicator plugin, I’m quite impressed with it, as it’s free and make
the migration process easy. Your experience may differ depending on the size of
your database and WordPress files, but overall as a free option, this is a great
solution to migrate WordPress Website to the new server.
I haven’t yet tried the same process to move a live server to local server or vice-
versa, but you can try the same as the process is easy and recommended by
many professional of WordPress field.
Let me know how’s your experience with Duplicator WordPress plugin, and if you
would like to suggest any alternative way for migrating the site from one server to
another? Don’t forget to share this guide with others on your social networking
site.