How do you migrate a site from Wordpress.com (free account) to Pantheon?

Question

How do you migrate a site from Wordpress.com (not .org, not WP Engine, not local, etc) to Pantheon.io?

Pantheon has a migration button, but it doesn't work with Wordpress.com free accounts because it requires you to install a plugin and you can't install plugins on Wordpress.com free accounts.

Pantheon documentation suggests for Wordpress.com migrations to use mysqldump but you don't have access to the database on Wordpress.com.

Answer 1

I'll answer my own question to help other people in the future:

Steps:

1. Check on Pantheon setting that Code -> Development Mode is SFTP mode, (this is the default setting,) and not Git mode. You need SFTP mode to install the importer plugin later.

2. In Wordpress.com Manage -> Settings make your blog public or hidden (not private) so it's images are available online for migration.

3. In Wordpress.com do Tools -> Export.

4. If the export takes a long time (more than a few seconds) it may have crashed, mine did first time, try agin.

5. When instructed, go to your email, download the .zip file and uncompress it to get a .xml file, (e.g. on a mac-double click .zip file. Note: your .xml file needs to be < 100MB, my 10 page brochure site was only 175KB. If your site .xml file is over 100MB then f*&k knows how you do it.

6. In Pantheon in Wordpress do Site Admin -> Tools -> Import and import your .xml file. (Don't try to import the .xml file in Pantheon Database / Files -> Import. It doesn't work.)

7. When asked, assign authors and tick 'Download and import file attachments'

8. Pantheon will then appear to be loading for a long time and show a blank screen with url [your site]/admin.php?import=wordpress&step=2 . Wait a bit, press refresh, it will display The application did not respond in time. Despite it looking like it hasn't worked, it has actually worked. (If it hasn't repeat this step.)

9. On Pantheon click on 'Visit Development Site' Click on Pages and your imported pages should be listed. If it hasn't worked, repeat step 8 (and maybe wait a bit longer when it's loading, but not too long, I gave up, and refreshed after a few minutes, and it still worked.)

10. Delete the Sample Page and delete the Hello world! post.

11. Import your code (I didn't try this) or redo your customisation/theme/settings/plugins manually as I did (e.g. If you use shortcodes, install the Jetpack plugin and select go to setpack settings -> Writing -> Compose using shortcodes to embed media from popular sites option.)

12. Congratulations, you've migrated from wordpress.com to Pantheon. You're welcome.