If you’re a developer, designer, or plugin or theme creator, it can be much more efficient for site development to install WordPress locally. In-fact, I’ve listened to countless presentations by developers at WordCamps explaining how important it is to have a local copy of WordPress installed for development purposes. But, having a local copy of WordPress (and possibly a staging and production copy) can triple your installation work. Follow these simple steps to install WordPress locally in a snap!
What you’ll need
- Computer running Windows or Mac OS (no Linux yet)
- A downloaded copy of DesktopServer Limited (free) from ServerPress
Approximate completion time
10 minutes
Step-by-step instructions to install WordPress locally
Install DesktopServer
After downloading DesktopServer, go to your downloads folder and double-click the DesktopServer installation icon. Follow the on-screen installation instructions.
Once ServerPress installation is finished, you’ll receive a completion message.
Run DesktopServer
Navigate to the DesktopServer installation directory. Double-click the DesktopServer icon.
Allow administrative rights
DesktopServer must run with administrative rights, so you might receive a message asking if you’d like to restart with administrative rights enabled. Select yes, and then click next.
Start MySQL and Apache
WordPress works best with MySQL and Apache. When asked if you’d like to start MySQL and Apache, select yes, and then click next.
Accept windows permission requests
At this point (depending on your Windows version), your system might ask for permission to share your internet connection with MySQL and Apache. Feel free to ‘allow access’.
Continue to create local development site
Click next until you come to this screen:
Select ‘create a new development site’, and click next.
Create your development site
Choose a name/domain for your new local development site, and click create.
Finish local site creation and get admin URL
Click next a couple times until you get to this page:
Click the link for finishing the local WordPress install, and follow the directions on-screen.
You now know how to install WordPress locally in a snap!
And there it is, your local development site setup and ready to rock! That wasn’t so bad right? Questions? Leave them below.