wp-exporter 1.0.0

Export WordPress posts to CSV or MySQL using the REST API

WordPress Post Exporter

Python tool to export all published posts from a WordPress site using the official REST API (wp-json/wp/v2), including post content and taxonomy/author metadata.

Features

• Exports all published posts with pagination (per_page=100).
• Supports csv and sql output.
• SQL output is MySQL 8 compatible.
• Includes progress logs in the terminal (with optional --quiet).
• Tries context=edit first, then automatically falls back to context=view if unauthorized.
• Preserves the full API payload in raw_post_json for custom fields and future migrations.

Exported Data

Each exported post includes:

• Core fields: id, status, type, slug, link, date, date_gmt, modified, modified_gmt
• Title, excerpt, and content in both flavors when available:
  • *_rendered
  • *_raw (typically available with context=edit + permissions)
• Author:
  • author_id
  • author_name
• Taxonomies:
  • categories IDs + names
  • tags IDs + names
• Extra fields:
  • featured_media, comment_status, ping_status, template, format, meta
• Full raw JSON payload:
  • raw_post_json

Requirements

• Python 3.10+

Installation

Install from PyPI (recommended)

pip install wp-exporter

This installs the wp-export command globally.

Install from source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/youruser/wp-exporter.git
cd wp-exporter

# Install in editable mode
pip install -e .

# Or install with dev dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Local development

1. (Optional, recommended) create and activate a virtual environment:

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

2. Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Or install the package in editable mode:

pip install -e .

Authentication

Use one of the following:

1. Bearer token

• --token

2. WordPress Application Password (Basic Auth)

• --username
• --application-password

Note: public exports also work without credentials in many sites, depending on API exposure rules.

Usage

Using wp-export command (after pip install)

# Public/API-view mode (no auth)
wp-export \
  --base-url https://example.com \
  --format csv \
  --output posts.csv

# Bearer token
wp-export \
  --base-url https://example.com \
  --token YOUR_TOKEN \
  --format csv \
  --output posts.csv

# Username + Application Password
wp-export \
  --base-url https://example.com \
  --username admin \
  --application-password "xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx" \
  --format sql \
  --output posts.sql

Using python main.py (local development)

# Public/API-view mode (no auth)
python3 main.py \
  --base-url https://example.com \
  --format csv \
  --output posts.csv

# Bearer token
python3 main.py \
  --base-url https://example.com \
  --token YOUR_TOKEN \
  --format csv \
  --output posts.csv

# Username + Application Password
python3 main.py \
  --base-url https://example.com \
  --username admin \
  --application-password "xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx" \
  --format sql \
  --output posts.sql

CLI Arguments

• --base-url (required): WordPress site base URL. Example: https://example.com
• --format: csv or sql (default: csv)
• --output (required): output file path
• --token: bearer token
• --username: WordPress username
• --application-password: WordPress Application Password
• --timeout: timeout in seconds per HTTP request (default: 30)
• --quiet: disable progress logs

Progress Output

By default, the exporter prints progress messages such as:

[INFO] Starting export...
[INFO] Fetching published posts (context=edit)...
[INFO] No permission for context=edit. Falling back to public mode (context=view).
[INFO] [posts] page 1/12 | accumulated: 100
[INFO] [posts] page 2/12 | accumulated: 200
[INFO] Total posts found: 1200
[INFO] Normalized: 1200/1200
[INFO] Writing CSV file to posts.csv...
Export completed. 1200 posts written to: posts.csv

CSV Format Specification

The CSV header columns are generated in this order:

1. id
2. date
3. date_gmt
4. modified
5. modified_gmt
6. slug
7. status
8. type
9. link
10. title_rendered
11. title_raw
12. excerpt_rendered
13. excerpt_raw
14. content_rendered
15. content_raw
16. author_id
17. author_name
18. categories_ids (JSON array string)
19. categories_names (JSON array string)
20. tags_ids (JSON array string)
21. tags_names (JSON array string)
22. featured_media
23. comment_status
24. ping_status
25. template
26. format
27. meta (JSON object string)
28. raw_post_json (full JSON object string)

Notes:

• CSV encoding is UTF-8.
• Content fields may contain long HTML/text.
• JSON-like columns are serialized as JSON strings.

SQL Format Specification (MySQL 8)

The .sql file includes:

1. Session setup:

• SET NAMES utf8mb4;
• SET time_zone = '+00:00';

2. Schema reset and creation:

• DROP TABLE IF EXISTS posts;
• CREATE TABLE posts (...) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4 COLLATE=utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

3. Batched inserts:

• INSERT INTO posts (...) VALUES (...), (...), ...;

Column Types

• id: BIGINT NOT NULL (primary key)
• author_id, featured_media: BIGINT NULL
• date, date_gmt, modified, modified_gmt: DATETIME NULL
• all remaining columns: LONGTEXT NULL

SQL Compatibility Details

• String escaping is MySQL-safe for:
  • backslash (\\)
  • single quote (\')
  • null byte (\0)
  • line break (\n)
  • carriage return (\r)
  • \x1a (\Z)
• Inserts are chunked (200 rows per statement) to reduce very large single statements.

Importing SQL into MySQL 8

mysql -u your_user -p your_database < posts.sql

Project Structure

.
├── main.py
├── requirements.txt
└── wp_exporter
    ├── __init__.py
    ├── client.py
    ├── config.py
    ├── exporters.py
    ├── service.py
    └── transformers.py

Troubleshooting

1. 401 or 403 from API

• Check credentials/permissions.
• Confirm REST API is enabled.
• If context=edit is blocked, the exporter automatically retries with context=view.

2. Empty *_raw fields

• Expected when the authenticated user lacks edit-level permissions.
• In public context, WordPress usually returns only rendered fields.

3. Timeout/network issues

• Increase --timeout.
• Check firewall/WAF/proxy restrictions.