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Split off from Migrating WordPress

Short answer: There might be ways to import something large, but it’s far easier to reduce the size of your database.

Importing a very large database is outside the scope of this tutorial. Ideas:

Begging your host to change settings ∞

Maybe your host can change your settings, at least temporarily, so you can upload a very large item. I doubt it.

FTP-uploading your file to the server ∞

Maybe if you upload your file to the server via FTP, you can import it from there. You might have to use MySQL directly.

This is outside the scope of this tutorial.

Reduce the source size ∞

Reduce the size of your database before exporting. (export your database / back up your website, before making drastic changes like this!)

• If you don’t care about old revisions of your edits, you may find Optimize Database after Deleting Revisions useful for reducing the size of your database.
• Think about other plugins you use, and what information they might be storing. Think about what you can do to reduce or clear their caches/data.

• Consider uninstalling plugins (to reinstall them later). Not disabling them, removing them completely.

  • Be careful that removing a plugin will probably remove your settings/customization!

More-heavily compress before importing ∞

• You should have zipped your database before exporting. Unzip it, then re-zip it with maximum compression. Try gzip to see if it can make the size smaller.

Try another file format ∞

Perhaps you can export as some other file format other than SQL. Maybe that would make something smaller. Handling other files is outside the scope of this tutorial.

Export/Import a little at a time ∞

It’s possible to export any tables you choose. Then you could re-import each. If you pursue this, make sure you are not commanding your tiny-export to drop the database when it is being imported.

If one of your tables is still too massive, then maybe there is a way to split it apart so you can import it piece-by-piece.