How to use WordPress offline and edit your website?

Getting started with WordPress and building your first site doesn’t require you to dig into your wallet right away. The following method is also very suitable for testing ideas for your existing site or for relaunching your site.

How do you get WordPress on your PC/Mac?

WordPress is server software. This means that you cannot install WordPress on your PC or Mac. Often it would be good or even very important to edit your site offline. Be it to test something or to redesign the whole site. The reasons for this would make a pretty long list…

Fortunately, there is an easy way to get WordPress running on your PC/Mac.

Step 1:

You need a local server. With the help of WampServer for Windows or MampServer for Mac you can quickly and easily simulate a working server environment on your computer and run WordPress offline and without a paid domain. I gave you detailed instructions for this in the blog post How to set up a local server.

Step 2:

You need WordPress. As soon as your server is running, you can tackle the exciting thing. Download the latest version of WordPress.

Step 3:

Create a database. OK. Here we go. Start your WampServer/MampServer. In the box at the bottom right of the Windows taskbar, click the WampServer icon -> then phpMyAdmin.

Your browser and the login window for your MySQL database will open.

If you have not changed the default settings, you can log in here with the user root and without a password.

Once in the MySQL Dashboard, click New in the top left column to create a new database. Give the database a name and confirm it by clicking the OK button.

Step 4:

Create a database user. Every page, blog post, image, and change you make in WordPress is stored in this database. In order for WordPress to be able to access your database automatically, you need a database user.

First select your database in the left column and then click on the View rights tab at the top of the database.

Here you can see the root user and all other users that you have already created. To create a new user for this database and for WordPress, click on Add user account in the New area.

Now set a username and password. The password should be a strong one so you don’t have to change it later when the site goes live.

In addition, in the Database for user account area, the checkmark next to Grant all rights to the database “your_database” must be set.

Step 5:

Create a WordPress directory on your computer. To do this, click on the WampServer icon in the lower right corner of the taskbar again. In the window that appears, click on www directory.

Alternatively, you can also use Explorer to go to the WampServer installation directory and open the www directory folder.

Inside the directory, create a new folder and give it your site’s name. For example your website.

You must now unpack the .zip folder with WordPress into this folder. To do this, open the previously downloaded folder wordpress.zip -> in it you open the folder wordpress -> mark all files with CTRL+A and drag them with the mouse into the folder you created your website.

The files will be unpacked and you will come to the last step.

Step 6:

Install WordPress.

Once everything is unzipped and in the correct folder and you have created your database, open your browser. In the address line you write localhost/your website and confirm this with the Enter key. (WordPress then automatically executes the file setup-config.php)

You’ll see the Welcome screen and a list of things you’ll need to install WordPress. Click Let’s go. Now fill in the data you created and confirm your information with the send button.

If all information is entered correctly, WordPress will connect to your database and you can run the installation.

If it doesn’t work, you entered something incorrectly. Pay close attention to upper and lower case and make sure you didn’t accidentally include a space.

If the installation was successful, you will see the welcome screen of your website and add the basic information such as the name of the website and create your username and password for the WordPress backend.

Confirm your information with Install WordPress and log in to your WordPress backend on the following screen.

The WordPress dashboard will appear and you can start using WordPress offline right away!

When the installation is run, WordPress writes the necessary tables into your MySQL database and automatically fills in all the values ​​you need to display your site. You don’t actually need to go into your database from now on, except to move it to a live site later.

I hope the article is of help to you and you were able to learn something! If so, then share this tutorial with your friends and anyone who might find it helpful…

I am glad about every comment. What are your thoughts on “WordPress offline” and what is your experience with local servers?