How to transfer PrestaShop 1.7 to different location

You have a new hosting server or domain or you just want to transfer your PrestaShop store from the local to live environment. This article will explain you how to transfer PrestaShop store to your new location. The first thing you need to do, is to copy and prepare your store files and database.

Preparation

Backup the PrestaShop files

First of all we need to disable PrestaShop cache. You don’t need to backup and copy those cache files. Furthermore go to your PrestaShop Back Office (admin) – > Advanced Parameters -> Performance. Disable and clear the cache. Additionally disable CCC (Combine, Compress and Cache) for all three settings – CSS, JavaScript and Apache.

Furthermore if you have media servers like CDN, and cache like Memcached, disable them too. Now go to your PrestaShop files and navigate to “Var” folder. When you are inside the “Var” folder, delete the “Cache” folder. Now you can copy your entire PrestaShop store folder and if you work with cPanel file manager, archive it easy and faster transfer of the files.

Export PrestaShop database

Next you need to export your store database. That depends on your hosting environment, but in most cases you should have “phpMyAdmin”. If you can’t find it, contact your hosting provider to help you with that. Following, open the “phpMyAdmin” and find your database on the left menu and click on it. After that once the database is selected, click the export option and export the database.

Deploy PrestaShop

Importing the database

Once again, we need to open “phpMyAdmin”, but this time on the new destination. when you are inside the “phpMyAdmin” create a new database, it doesn’t have to be the same name as previous one. Write down the new database name, user name and password for it. Now import your exported database into this new database accordingly.

Secondly, you need to change the shop URL to you URL in the database itself. Following navigate to table “ps_shop_url” and click on it to get inside. After that, change the fields of “domain”, “domain_ssl” and “physical_uri” to your new domain and location.

Transfer PrestaShop files

Now it is time to transfer your PrestaShop backed up files. Following if you were using cPanel file manager, you can directly upload the archive file and extract it in the new folder location once the file is uploaded. Wait to finish the transfer and move to configuration.

Configuration of the new settings

When the transfer of the file is complete, and database is transferred and configured too, we just need to point your PrestaShop files to the new database. Following navigate to your PrestaShop folder and then find folder “app” – > “config”. Afterwards once you are there copy specifically “parameters.php” and edit it. Lastly you need to put your new database name as well as you user name and password inside. When you are done editing the file, replace it with your original and in general you are ready for testing.

Testing your transferred PrestaShop store

Now you can go to your new store back office URL. Log in and go to “Shop Parameters” – > “Traffic & SEO”. Once inside, just press any “Save” button to re-generate your new .htaccess file. You can now activate your caching to seep up your store.

If you see a blank page when you are opening your admin, this means that you entered wrong database credentials in parameters.php or you write wrong store URL in “ps_shop_url” in the database. Double check them and you are good to go.

Finally your PrestaShop transfer is now complete.