Import from WordPress

Do you have a WordPress blog with family stories? You can import it into PastPaths so the posts become part of your genealogical research — searchable, tagged, and linked to persons and places.

Export from WordPress

1. Log in to your WordPress admin
2. Go to Tools → Export
3. Choose All content (or just Posts if you don't want pages included)
4. Click Download export file — you'll get an .xml file

Save the file somewhere easy to find

You'll need to point to the file in PastPaths.

What gets imported?

PastPaths reads:

• Posts — blog posts with title, content, excerpt, date, and status (published/draft)
• Pages — informational pages (e.g. "About me")
• Categories — preserved along with any parent structure
• Tags — preserved as they are
• Attachments — images, audio, video, and documents uploaded in WordPress. They're downloaded from your WordPress server and saved locally in the PastPaths media library.
• Other files in the posts — images and other files the posts show or link to that aren't attachments. They're downloaded to the media library too.
• Featured image — the post's featured image in WordPress becomes the featured image in PastPaths. If there isn't one, the first image in the post is used.

Carrying out the import

1. Go to Administration → Import & Export
2. Click Import in the Import WordPress blog card. The import dialog opens.
3. Choose your .xml file and click Start Import

The import runs in the background, and the dialog shows a progress bar with what's going on:

1. Reading the file — categories and tags
2. Downloading attachments — from the WordPress server
3. Creating posts and pages — images, audio, video, and file links in the content are pointed to the local files
4. Updating links between posts — see Links in the posts
5. Downloading other media files

Once the import is done, the dialog shows how many posts and pages, categories, tags, and media files were imported, along with any warnings. The import also shows up in the import history right away.

The WordPress site must be online

The files are downloaded directly from the WordPress server during the import, so the computer needs to be online. If a file can't be downloaded, a warning is shown and the post still points to the file on WordPress.

Warnings

The warnings are shown in the import dialog and in the import history, via the warning button on the import's row. They can be, for example, that:

• an attachment or a file in a post couldn't be downloaded
• a post links to a page on the blog that isn't in the export
• a post contains a shortcode from a plugin that couldn't be converted

Posts that got a warning are also marked with a red tag, see Auto-tags.

Download files afterward

If files were missed during the import (e.g. because the site was down), click Download WP files on the Import & Export page. The button is shown when there are posts imported from WordPress. It tries to fetch the files in the posts that still point to WordPress. Files that are already local are skipped.

The files get the import tag but don't count toward any import, so Undo import doesn't remove them.

Links in the posts

The posts should keep working even if the WordPress blog is taken down. Links to the blog itself are therefore pointed to pages in PastPaths:

Link in WordPress	Points to after the import
Another post or a page	The post in the PastPaths blog
An attachment page (the page WordPress shows for an image or file)	The media page in PastPaths
A category or tag	The category's or tag's page
The blog's front page	The blog in PastPaths
A file (image, PDF, audio …)	The downloaded file

Links to other websites are left as they are and open in your regular web browser when you click them. A link to the blog that can't be pointed to PastPaths, for example to a page that wasn't in the export, gives a warning.

Auto-tags

All posts, pages, and media files that are imported are automatically tagged with -wordpress-import-YYYY-MM-DD (e.g. -wordpress-import-2026-05-09). This makes it easy to filter by the tag and see exactly what came from a particular import.

Posts that got a warning during the import are also tagged with the red tag -wordpress-warning-YYYY-MM-DD. Filter by it to go through the posts that need checking. The tag is red when it's created. If you change the color, your color is kept on the next import.

After the import

The posts are now found under Blog in PastPaths. What you can do next:

• Go through the posts with the warning tag. See Auto-tags.
• Link posts to persons, places, and events. Open a post and add links — the post is then shown on the Blog tab of that person's, place's, or event's page. → Read more
• Review categories. WordPress categories become PastPaths categories — you might want to clean up or rename them in the taxonomy management.
• Add more tags. WordPress tags come along, but you might want to add new ones for better searchability in a genealogical context (e.g. place names, family names).

Import history and undoing

The WordPress import appears in the regular import history together with GEDCOM imports. There you can see when the import was done, how many posts and media files were imported, and whether it succeeded.

Undo an import

Click the undo icon (↩) on the relevant row in the import history. This also works for an import that failed or was interrupted — whatever was imported before that is removed. This removes:

• All blog posts and pages created during the import
• All media files downloaded during the import, except those you've linked to something else yourself

Tags and categories aren't deleted

Tags and categories are shared across all of PastPaths and aren't deleted when you undo, including the import and warning tags. If they were only used by the removed posts, they become unused — remove them manually in the taxonomy management if you want.

Re-import if needed

If you've made changes in WordPress and want to import again — first undo the old import, export a new XML file, and import again. Slug deduplication prevents categories and tags from being created twice.

Limitations

Custom Post Types. Custom post types (e.g. a "Family Tree" plugin) aren't imported — only regular posts and pages.

Shortcodes. [audio], [video], [gallery], and [playlist] are converted into audio and video players and images that show the local files. [caption] and [embed] are removed, but the caption or link inside them is kept. Shortcodes from plugins stay as text and give a warning. Text in square brackets, like [1] or [sic] in a transcription, is kept.

File types. Only file types the media library accepts are downloaded from the posts, up to 50 MB per file. Attachments are imported whatever their file type.

Comments. Comments on posts aren't imported.

Multiple authors. If the blog has multiple authors, all posts are registered as yours in PastPaths.