WordPress Export Script

A powerful shell script that exports WordPress posts, custom permalinks, custom meta fields, and users from WordPress sites - either locally or remotely via SSH. Generates both CSV and Excel files for SEO audits and data analysis.

Key Features

• ✅ Proper CSV Handling: Correctly handles posts with commas, quotes, and special characters in titles
• 🔄 Unified Operation: Single script for both local and remote exports
• 📊 Excel Generation: Automatic conversion with clickable URLs and admin links
• 🔍 Dynamic Discovery: Automatically finds all public post types
• 🌐 Multi-Host Support: Works with Pressable, WP Engine, Kinsta, AWS, and more
• 🔧 SSH Debugging: Built-in verbose mode, pre-flight validation, and RemoteCommand detection
• 📋 Custom Meta Fields: Export any WordPress meta key as additional spreadsheet columns
• 💾 Configuration Memory: Remembers recent domains, SSH connections, and paths

Features

• Unified Script: Single script handles both local and remote (SSH) exports
• Post Export: Exports all public post types (posts, pages, custom post types)
• Custom Permalinks: Captures custom permalink structures if set (always included)
• Custom Meta Fields: Export additional meta keys (e.g., _yoast_wpseo_title) as extra columns
• User Export: Optional export of users with their post counts
• Excel Generation: Automatically converts CSV to Excel with formulas for clickable URLs
• SEO-Ready: Includes all necessary data for SEO audits and migration planning
• Smart SSH: Auto-detects SSH hosts from config and suggests appropriate paths
• Path Recall: Remembers previously used paths for each SSH host
• SSH Pre-Flight Validation: Tests connectivity, path existence, and WP-CLI availability before exporting
• RemoteCommand Detection: Automatically handles SSH configs with RemoteCommand and RequestTTY directives
• Sudo Wrapping: Detects sudo -iu <user> patterns in SSH config and wraps commands accordingly
• Domain-Named Folders: Export folders include the domain name for easy identification
• Host Detection: Recognizes common hosts and adapts accordingly
• Verbose/Debug Modes: CLI flags for troubleshooting SSH and export issues

Usage

Command-Line Flags

# Local export (run from WordPress root directory)
./export_wp_posts.sh

# Remote export (via SSH)
./export_wp_posts.sh --remote
./export_wp_posts.sh -r

# Verbose mode (show SSH debug output)
./export_wp_posts.sh --verbose
./export_wp_posts.sh -v

# Debug mode (verbose + debug log file)
./export_wp_posts.sh --debug

# Combine flags
./export_wp_posts.sh --remote --verbose
./export_wp_posts.sh -r -v

Setup Excel Support

./enable_excel.sh

How It Works

The script will:

1. Auto-detect available SSH hosts from your ~/.ssh/config (remote mode)
2. Show SSH favorites with saved paths from previous exports
3. Suggest appropriate WordPress paths based on the host type or saved history
4. Run pre-flight SSH validation (connectivity, path, WP-CLI)
5. Discover all public post types dynamically
6. Prompt for optional custom meta field exports
7. Prompt for domain name and user export preference
8. Generate all files locally in a timestamped, domain-named folder

Output

All files are created in a timestamped folder that includes the domain name:

!export_wp_posts_20250811_143244_example-com/
├── export_all_posts.csv              # Raw post export
├── export_custom_permalinks.csv      # Custom permalink data
├── export_meta_[key].csv            # Custom meta field data (one per key)
├── export_wp_posts_[timestamp].csv   # Final merged CSV
├── export_wp_posts_[timestamp].xlsx  # Excel file with formulas
├── export_users.csv                  # Raw user export (if enabled)
├── export_users_with_post_counts.csv # Users with post counts (if enabled)
└── export_debug_log.txt             # Debug information (if --debug)

Excel File Structure

The generated Excel file includes:

• Row 1: Editable base domain (change this to update all URLs)
• Row 2: Column headers
• Column A: Formula-generated full URLs (uses custom permalink if exists, otherwise post_name)
• Custom Meta Columns: Inserted between custom_permalink and post_date (if any meta fields were exported)
• Last Column: Clickable WP Admin edit links

The number of columns adjusts dynamically based on how many custom meta fields are exported. The base is 7 columns (ID, title, name, custom_permalink, date, status, type) plus one column per meta field, plus the URL formula and edit link columns.

Requirements

• Bash: Compatible shell environment
• For Local Mode:
  • WP-CLI installed and accessible
  • Run from WordPress root directory
• For Remote Mode:
  • SSH access to the target server
  • WP-CLI installed on the remote server
• For Excel Generation:
  • Python 3
  • openpyxl package (installed via enable_excel.sh)

Installing Excel Support

Run the included setup script:

./enable_excel.sh

This will install openpyxl in your user directory without affecting system Python.

Supported Hosts (Remote Mode)

The script recognizes and adapts to:

• Pressable: Auto-suggests /htdocs path
• WP Engine: Auto-detects site path from hostname
• Kinsta: Suggests standard Kinsta paths
• AWS/EC2: Suggests /var/www/html
• AWS Lightsail / Bitnami: Suggests /opt/bitnami/wordpress
• Cloudways: Suggests ~/public_html
• Flywheel: Suggests ~/public_html
• SiteGround: Suggests ~/public_html
• Generic hosts: Default to ~/public_html

If a host has been used before via SSH favorites, the previously used path is suggested instead.

Configuration

The script stores configuration in .config/wp-export-config.json (gitignored) in the script directory:

• Recent Domains: Up to 10 recently exported domains, shown as selectable options
• SSH Favorites: Recently used SSH connections with their WordPress paths, shown at the top of the host list
• Export Statistics: Tracks export count, last export date, and post counts per domain
• Path Recall: When selecting an SSH host by number, if that host was previously used as a favorite, its saved path is suggested automatically

Exported Data

Posts Export (7+ columns)

1. ID: Post ID
2. post_title: Title (sanitized, commas removed)
3. post_name: URL slug
4. custom_permalink: Custom permalink if set
5. [Custom meta fields]: Any additional meta keys requested during export
6. post_date: Publication date
7. post_status: Status (publish, draft, etc.)
8. post_type: Type (post, page, custom types)

Custom Meta Fields

When prompted, you can export any WordPress meta key as an additional column. Enter meta key names one at a time (press Enter on an empty line when done):

Export additional meta fields? (y/n, default: n): y
Enter meta key names one per line (press Enter twice when done):
Example: _custom_clean_url, _yoast_wpseo_title
> _yoast_wpseo_title
  Added: _yoast_wpseo_title
> _custom_clean_url
  Added: _custom_clean_url
>

Each meta field is exported to its own intermediate CSV, then merged into the final output. The custom_permalink column is always present regardless of custom meta field choices.

Users Export (8 columns if enabled)

1. ID: User ID
2. user_login: Username
3. user_email: Email address
4. first_name: First name
5. last_name: Last name
6. display_name: Display name
7. roles: User roles
8. post_count: Number of posts authored (N/A for remote exports)

Troubleshooting

SSH Pre-Flight Validation

The script runs three validation tests before attempting an export:

1. SSH Connectivity: Can we connect to the host?
2. WordPress Path: Does the specified directory exist?
3. WP-CLI: Is WP-CLI installed and accessible?

Each test provides specific troubleshooting guidance on failure.

RemoteCommand / sudo Detection

Some SSH configs (e.g., AWS setups) include RemoteCommand or RequestTTY directives that prevent scripted command execution. The script:

1. Detects RemoteCommand via ssh -G <host>
2. Overrides it with -o RemoteCommand=none -o RequestTTY=no
3. If the RemoteCommand uses sudo -iu <user>, wraps all WP-CLI commands with the same sudo prefix

This is fully automatic — no manual configuration needed.

Verbose and Debug Modes

# Show SSH stderr output for connection debugging
./export_wp_posts.sh --verbose

# Full debug mode (verbose + debug log file in export directory)
./export_wp_posts.sh --debug

SSH Connection Issues

• The script uses -T flag to disable pseudo-terminal allocation
• Connection keepalive is enabled with 5-second intervals
• SSH timeout set to 30 seconds
• If you see "Cannot execute command-line and remote command", the RemoteCommand detection should handle this automatically
• For manual debugging: ssh -v <host> 'echo test'

Excel Generation

• If Excel generation fails, ensure Python and openpyxl are installed
• Run ./enable_excel.sh to set up Excel support
• CSV files can always be imported into Excel/Google Sheets manually

Examples

Local WordPress Export

cd /var/www/mysite
./export_wp_posts.sh
# Enter domain: mysite.com
# Include users? y

Remote Pressable Export

./export_wp_posts.sh --remote
# Select host: 1 (pressable-site)
# Confirm path: /htdocs
# Enter domain: client-site.com
# Include users? n

Remote AWS Export with Meta Fields

./export_wp_posts.sh -r -v
# Select host: my-aws-host
# Path: /var/www/blog/public_html/blog/
# Domain: example.com
# Export additional meta fields? y
# > _yoast_wpseo_title
# > _custom_clean_url
# >
# Include users? y

Legacy Script

The original local-only script is preserved as export_wp_posts_legacy.sh for reference.

Contributing

Feel free to submit issues and enhancement requests!

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details

Author

Eric Rasch GitHub: https://github.com/ericrasch/script-export-wp-posts

Future Enhancements (TODO)

1. Configuration File Support ✅ Implemented in v5.0

• Save settings the first time a user runs the script
• Incrementally add domains to the configuration file as they're used
• Present previously used domains as options when script is rerun
• Save SSH favorites from recently used connections
• Include last exported date for each domain

2. Export Profiles/Templates

• Add ability to save and reuse export configurations (e.g., --profile seo-audit)
• Different profiles for different use cases (migration, audit, backup)

3. Incremental/Delta Exports

• Export only posts modified since last export
• Options like --since "2025-08-01" or --since-last-export

4. Additional Export Formats

• JSON export for programmatic processing
• SQL export for direct database dumps
• Markdown export for documentation

5. Enhanced Error Recovery

• Automatic retry on SSH connection failures
• Resume capability for interrupted exports
• Better timeout handling for large sites

6. Export Validation & Reports

• Check for broken internal links
• Identify missing featured images
• Find duplicate slugs/permalinks
• Generate summary reports with potential issues

7. Bulk Operations Support

• Export from multiple sites in one run
• Support for batch configuration files

8. Custom Field Support ✅ Implemented in v5.0

• Export specific custom fields/meta data
• Option like --meta-keys "seo_title,seo_description"

9. Performance Enhancements

• Parallel processing for large exports
• Compression of export files
• Option to exclude post content for faster exports
• Option to exclude specific post-types

10. Integration Features

• Webhook notifications on completion
• Direct upload to Google Drive/Dropbox
• Email export results

11. Data Transformation Options

• Convert relative URLs to absolute
• Strip HTML from titles/content
• Normalize date formats

12. Security Enhancements

• Encrypted exports for sensitive data
• Audit log of exports
• Option to redact personal data