How to Export Users from WordPress and Preserve Passwords

User data contain sensitive information such as login details and passwords that need to be dealt with carefully. If you are migrating users to a new site, you need to first export data from your old site. Unfortunately, there is no option within WordPress that will help you with it.

Thus your only option is to look for a third-party plugin that can enable your WordPress site to export users.

In this article, you will get familiar with some of the plugins that are capable of the task and learn how they work.

Other than the migration of users, WordPress user export will be required in the following scenarios as well.

• You want to update user data
• You are merging two sites. Then you can export users from one site and import them to the other
• You may want to save your user’s details locally and want to use them later for marketing purposes
• You want to export users into an email list or your CRM
• You want to keep a backup of all your user data

As we mentioned above you want to merge two sites and all your users should be able to continue with their accounts without any trouble. You can surely ask them to reset passwords, but it is not the ideal user experience. Thus, preserving passwords is a crucial thing when you are exporting WordPress users.

WordPress users and WooCommerce customers export is a free WordPress plugin using which you can export passwords from your WordPress site’s database and import them to your new site as they are.

This WordPress user export plugin is one of the most popular and user-friendly options for exporting users. It comes with two different export methods – quick and advanced. Other than user export the plugin is capable of carrying out the following functions as well.

• Importing users to WordPress from a CSV
• Export and import of customers
• Export and import of guest users
• Bulk update user data

At first, you need to install and activate the plugin on your website from which you are exporting the WordPress users.

On clicking the menu a set of sub-menus will appear, from among which you need to click the export tab.

This step is purely optional and only required for those who need to export users selectively. Here you get to apply filters for export such as user email, role, date range, etc.

Certain scenarios like updates don’t require all the user fields to be exported. You may only need to export the fields that you want to update. In such situations, you can choose which of the user fields to be included in the export file.

All fields will be selected by default, if you need to exclude certain fields from exporting you can do so by de-selecting them.

Exporting only the fields that you require can reduce clutter and make the export faster.

You can also rename, drag-and-drop the field names to be exported and control how they appear in the exported CSV file.

The plugin gives you the option to save your export configurations as a template so the next time you want to do a similar export you can use the template instead of repeating the same configurations. These templates can be edited and saved with a name of your choice.

The CSV file gets auto-downloaded to your computer.

Following is a screenshot of a sample CSV after export.

Here the fourth column of the CSV file has the user password.

Following are some other plugins that you can use to export users from your WordPress site

The Import and Export Users and Customers is a simple and free solution to export users from your WordPress site. With the plugin, you can export users in bulk or based on user role, and date. Currently, the plugin supports export as CSV only and allows you to set the delimiter for the exporting CSV.

The plugin lets you choose the fields that you want to export by entering their name separated by a comma (,) while configuring export. There is also the option to double encapsulate serialized values.

WP Import Export Lite is a feature-rich free plugin that lets you export users into multiple file formats. The plugin currently supports CSV, XLS, XLSX, XML, ODS, and JSON formats for export. Filters can be applied to any user data for a smooth custom export.

You can choose which fields to export and rename the field labels to anything you want. The order of the fields can be changed to reflect the exporting file. You can choose the field separator, give the export file a custom name, control the number of users to be exported per iteration and even save the export settings as a template for future use.

With the WP All Export plugin and its user export add-on you can export users to CSV or XML file formats. Both the plugin and its add-on are free and you can download them directly from WordPress.org.

Using the plugin you can easily customize the export file using its drag-and-drop interface. You can select the user fields to be exported and rename and re-order them in the exported file. However, to migrate users and export user meta fields you will have to purchase its pro package.

Quick User Export is a paid plugin using which you can easily export users from your WordPress site. It lets you export users to CSV or XML format. The plugin comes with a bunch of powerful filters to help you with custom export.

With the plugin, you can export custom user fields and the fields created by third-party plugins along with the default WordPress user fields. The user fields are fully customizable, you can rename them and change the order within the export file.

CSV User Import Export is another paid plugin available to export users from your WordPress site. The plugin allows you to export users to a CSV file. Using the plugin you can export custom fields along with the default WordPress user fields. It also supports the import and update of user data.

We hope the article has been helpful in expanding your understanding of the user export process and in choosing the right tool for the task. You may check out this user import-export video tutorial to watch and learn how the plugin works.