[Resolved] Export/import menus?

[Jay Martin]

For some reason, I can’t seem to locate any Menu data in any of the Export data types in any of the files produced by the GP Export facility (Appearance > GeneratePress, under “Import / Export”).

The Menu Plus stuff only deals with the settings for that Addon. There’s a Secondary Nav Settings option, but what I need is a “Primary Nav Settings” option that completely dumps/reconstructs my many menu options. Neither the Blog Settings nor General Settings yielded any results.

Did I miss something obvious?

[Leo]

Hi there,

I think all of that would be stored in the WordPress database as it’s just a normal WordPress menu.

That kind of data, such as content as well, should be stored with WordPress so when you want to switch themes (hopefully not 🙂 ) it would be easy so you don’t have to rebuild the menu each time.

Let me know if this helps.

[Jay Martin]

Well, I did a full-blown (stock, no special plugin used) export of the entire site, and then examined the XML data dump. I could not find anything resembling my menu data, done by searching for obvious unique text patterns in the menu data.

I’ll look again.

[Leo]

Maybe something like this would help? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4705413/where-does-wordpress-store-custom-menus

[Jay Martin]

That raw database approach looks handy, if not…well, raw.

I just tried the stock WP export again, and this time I found the XML menu defs. My sincerest apologies.

However, since I have your attention (and for posterity), can you folks recommend any decent plugin that would allow one to extract only a defined subset of data from a WP site? Your plugin recommendations have been spot-on in the past, so I just thought I’d ask.

Thanks for your help, Leo!

[Leo]

No apologies needed. These are good questions that help me to learn as well 🙂

I haven’t had to use one myself but will ask Tom if he has.

Generally the reviews for plugins are pretty creditable so I just go by them.

[Tom]

Hmm, couldn’t really find any plugins, but I found this: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3546502/export-wordpress-nav-menus

[Jay Martin]

Given that the StackOverflow post is 6 years old, I hope you don’t mind if I pass on that one. 😉

But thanks for the effort, Tom!

[Tom]

I don’t think the location of the menu items has changed.

There’s some plugins, but they’re old. Seems strange there isn’t more options – seems like a pretty important feature to have.

[Jay Martin]

Yes, I agree entire — when it comes to export/import, one should have the ability to select which pieces ‘n parts to transfer.

I have been relegated to editing the XML for an all-in-one WP dump in order to transfer just the pieces I need. There must be a plugin out there that does that, so it’s off to spend time researching that.

Sometimes I feel that researching plugins on the wordpress.org site to be a lot like searching for a film to watch on Netflix…

[Author]

Posts