How to search and replace in your WordPress database with WP-CLI

WordPress stores your website’s address in many places in its database. If you change domain, or move from http:// to https://, you need to update every one of them. WP-CLI’s search-replace command does this safely, including in data that other methods can break.

New to WP-CLI? Start with getting started with WP-CLI, which shows you how to connect and get to your website’s folder.

Take a backup first. Before making changes, export your database – see how to back up and restore your WordPress database with WP-CLI – or create a manual backup in your Enhance panel.

1. Check your current address

wp option get siteurl
wp option get home

2. Do a dry run first

This shows how many changes would be made, without changing anything:

wp search-replace 'https://old-domain.co.uk' 'https://new-domain.co.uk' --skip-columns=guid --dry-run

Replace the two addresses with your old and new ones. Check the numbers look sensible.

3. Make the changes

Run the same command without --dry-run:

wp search-replace 'https://old-domain.co.uk' 'https://new-domain.co.uk' --skip-columns=guid

4. Clear caches and check your website

wp cache flush

Then check your website in a browser, including images and links.

Example: moving from http to https

wp search-replace 'http://yourdomain.co.uk' 'https://yourdomain.co.uk' --skip-columns=guid --dry-run

Then run it again without --dry-run. Make sure your SSL certificate is working first – see how SSL certificates work on your website.

Tips

• Be specific. Include https:// in both addresses, so you only change website addresses and not other text that happens to match.
• Don’t add a / at the end of either address, unless you add it to both.
• --skip-columns=guid leaves WordPress’s internal post IDs alone, which is recommended.

Need a hand? Please contact our support team. We look after your hosting and WP-CLI; problems inside WordPress plugins and themes are covered in do you support WordPress plugins and themes.