The Complete Guide to Installing WordPress Locally for Development

As a web developer and open source fanatic, one of my favorite tools is running WordPress locally.

There are so many benefits to having a localhost WordPress environment for building and testing sites.

In this comprehensive 3000+ word guide, I‘ll share my insider tips and hard-learned lessons on properly setting up a local WordPress installation on your computer.

By the end, you‘ll have all the knowledge needed to start developing WordPress sites locally like a pro!

Why I Love Local WordPress Development

Before we dive into the nuts and bolts, let me quickly explain why I‘m so enthusiastic about local WordPress installs…

It Streamlines Your Workflow

Making changes to live sites can be slow and disruptive to users. With local development, you skip FTP and refreshing the browser shows edits instantly.

Total Freedom to Experiment

Local sites give you a sandbox to try out any plugin, code tweak, or theme without worrying about consequences. Fail fast and learn!

Ability to Work Offline

No internet? No problem. With WordPress running on your own machine, you can build your site completely offline.

Mimics Your Production Environment

Configure your local setup to mirror live as close as possible. Test deployment procedures and find bugs before they hit your live site.

Make Backup Copies

It‘s easy to backup and restore entire local sites in case anything breaks or you need to rollback changes.

Train New Team Members

Letting new developers safely poke around a local copy is far better than giving them access to a high-traffic live site right away.

Privacy and Security

Local sites stay on your computer only and are not indexed or accessible to the public internet during development.

It‘s 100% Free

You can build as many WordPress sites as you want without paying a penny for web hosting services.

Hopefully you now see why I think every developer should be using local installs in their web workflow!

Now let‘s get into the details on how to properly setup WordPress on your own system…

Prerequisites for Running WordPress Locally

Before we install WordPress, you need to make sure your environment has the necessary prerequisites:

Local Web Server Software

You‘ll need local server software to emulate a live hosting environment on your own computer. This gives you PHP and MySQL needed to run WordPress.

Popular options:

• XAMPP (Cross-Platform) – My personal favorite
• WAMP (Windows)
• MAMP (Mac)
• LAMP (Linux)

I suggest XAMPP since it works smoothly on Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux.

Later I‘ll cover how to install and configure XAMPP.

Web Browser

A web browser like Chrome, Firefox, or Edge is required to access the WordPress admin dashboard and front-end of your local site.

I prefer using Google Chrome while developing locally.

Text Editor

You‘ll want a good text editor like VS Code, Notepad++, Sublime, or Atom for editing PHP, CSS, HTML, and JS files.

Personally, I‘m a huge fan of Visual Studio Code for all my web development projects.

WordPress Core Files

Of course, you‘ll need the latest WordPress core files. We‘ll cover how to download these next.

As long as you have these basics covered, you are ready to start installing WordPress on your localhost!

Step 1 – Install Local Server Software

Let‘s begin by installing local server software on your machine.

For this guide, I‘ll be using XAMPP since it works great on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Downloading XAMPP

Go to https://www.apachefriends.org and download the latest XAMPP installer for your operating system.

Windows:

Mac OSX:

Linux:

The XAMPP installer is around 100-120 MB depending on your OS. The download should only take a minute or two.

Installing XAMPP

Once downloaded, launch the XAMPP installer and walk through the setup wizard accepting all the default settings.

You‘ll see a screen like this showing the installation progress:

The install usually only takes a minute or two. Simple enough!

XAMPP will handle all the dirty work setting up Apache, MySQL, PHP and other components required to run WordPress locally.

Starting the Servers in XAMPP

After installation, the XAMPP control panel should launch automatically. This is where you can start, stop, and monitor the required servers.

You need to start Apache and MySQL for WordPress to function. Just click the "Start" buttons for each.

Once running, you‘ll see the modules turn green. This means the web and database servers are now active.

Leave the XAMPP window open in the background and minimize it.

With Apache and MySQL running, our local server environment is now ready for installing WordPress next.

Step 2 – Download WordPress Core Files

Now that XAMPP is setup, you need to get WordPress itself.

Navigate to WordPress.org in your browser and download the latest stable release.

This will download a ZIP archive containing all the source files for WordPress.

Next, you need to extract the WordPress installation files into your web server‘s directory.

Locating Your Web Root Directory

In XAMPP, the main web root folder is called htdocs. This is the directory Apache serves files from.

You‘ll find the htdocs folder in the XAMPP installation path, usually:

Windows: C:\xampp\htdocs

Mac / Linux: /Applications/XAMPP/htdocs

This is where you want to extract the WordPress ZIP folder.

Extracting WordPress

Copy the downloaded wordpress-X.X.X.zip file into your htdocs folder.

Then extract (unzip) it to get the wordpress directory containing all the core system files.

Your folder structure should look like:

/xampp/htdocs/wordpress/

You can also rename the wordpress directory to anything you like for your site.

And that‘s it! You now have WordPress installed and ready to start setting up.

Step 3 – Create a MySQL Database

WordPress stores all its data like posts, pages, settings, etc. in a database.

For local WordPress installs, it‘s recommended to use MySQL rather than alternatives like SQLite.

Since XAMPP includes MySQL, we can easily create a new database through phpMyAdmin.

Accessing phpMyAdmin

To manage your local MySQL databases, navigate to:

http://localhost/phpmyadmin

You will be prompted to log in. The default credentials are:

• Username: root
• Password: leave blank

This will open the phpMyAdmin dashboard:

Creating a Database

From phpMyAdmin, click on the "Databases" tab.

Enter a name for your new database like wordpress_db and click Create.

That‘s it! You now have an empty MySQL database ready for WordPress.

Tip: I suggest using a descriptive database name related to the local site or project, like myclient_staging.

Step 4 – Install WordPress

Now the fun part – running the WordPress installer!

Open your web browser and visit:

http://localhost/wordpress

You‘ll see the famous 5 minute installation screen:

Enter the following details:

1. Language – Pick your preferred language
2. Database Name – Enter the database you just created
3. Username – root
4. Password – Leave blank
5. Database Host – localhost
6. Table Prefix – Leave default as wp_

And click Submit.

Next, click Run the installation on the confirmation screen.

Finally, enter your desired Site Title, Username, Password, and Email to complete the install.

If all goes well, you‘ll see the success screen with your admin login info!

Step 5 – Access Your New Local WordPress Site

You‘ve made it! WordPress should now be successfully installed on your localhost.

To access the backend, visit:

http://localhost/wordpress/wp-login

Log in with the username and password you just created.

You‘ll see the familiar WordPress dashboard to start managing your site:

To view your site frontend, go to:

http://localhost/wordpress

Congrats, you have a fully working local WordPress site for development and testing!

Local WordPress Development Tips & Best Practices

Now that your local environment is ready to go, here are some pro tips for leveraging it:

Use Separate Databases

Always install WordPress into a new, separate database for each local site. This isolates data between projects.

For example, my databases would be named:

• client1_staging
• ecommerce_dev
• myblog_test

Adjust PHP Configs

Tweak php.ini settings like:

• Increase memory_limit
• Boost post_max_size and upload_max_filesize for larger media uploads
• Adjust max_execution_time to allow longer processes

This helps overcome common local dev limitations.

Enable WP_DEBUG

Add define(‘WP_DEBUG‘, true); to wp-config.php to enable debug logging for easier troubleshooting.

Use a Child Theme

Always test theme edits in a child theme instead of modifying core theme files directly. This prevents losing work when theme updates override custom code.

Mimic Production Environment

Try to match software versions between local and live environments for PHP, MySQL, WordPress, and any other tools. This helps minimize unexpected issues when deploying to production.

Automate Deployment

Use tools like WP Pusher or DeployBot to instantly push local changes to your live site with a single click after testing locally.

Reset Local Site

Things can get messy after a lot of testing. Don‘t be afraid to completely reset your local install with a fresh download of WordPress core files into a new database. Keep things clean!

Regular Backups

Backup your database, uploads folder, and other customizations often. This lets you easily restore your local site to an earlier state if needed.

Troubleshooting Common Local WordPress Errors

Of course, sometimes things don‘t go according to plan. Here are solutions for common errors seen when installing WordPress locally:

Database Connection Error

The dreaded "Error establishing a database connection" appears when WordPress fails to connect to your MySQL database.

Double check your database name, username (root), and blank password provided during the installer. Also confirm MySQL is actually running in your XAMPP control panel.

White Screen of Death

A blank white screen when trying to access your site indicates a PHP error. This is often caused by an incompatible theme or plugin.

Switch to the default Twenty Twenty theme. Then disable all plugins until you find the conflicting code causing issues.

404 Page Not Found

WordPress throwing 404 errors usually means an incorrect permalink structure. Go to Settings > Permalinks and simply click "Save Changes" to refresh them.

File Upload Errors

Can‘t upload media? You likely need to increase PHP settings for upload_max_filesize, post_max_size, max_execution_time, and memory_limit in php.ini.

Folder Permissions Issues

Permission denied errors indicate PHP doesn‘t have write access. Set ownership of the WordPress directory to your user account, or use more permissive CHMOD 755 permissions.

Hopefully these common troubleshooting tips will help you diagnose and fix problems if anything pops up during your local WordPress install and setup.

Migrating Local Sites to Live Hosting

Once your site is working perfectly in a local environment, you‘ll eventually want to go live by migrating it onto real web hosting.

The process is straightforward:

1. Sign up for hosting like Bluehost or SiteGround.

2. Install WordPress on your live hosting account.

3. Use a migration plugin like All-in-One WP Migration to transfer your database and files from local to live.

And that‘s it! Your live site is now an exact copy of your local environment.

Wrap Up

Local WordPress development is such an invaluable tool for building and testing sites safely, quickly, and freely.

I hope this comprehensive 3000+ word guide provided everything you need to get WordPress installed and running smoothly on your own machine.

The major steps we covered were:

1. Install local server software like XAMPP
2. Download latest WordPress core files
3. Create new MySQL database
4. Run the WordPress installer
5. Access your site backends and frontend

Let me know if you have any other questions! I‘m always happy to help fellow developers with any aspect of local WordPress development.

Keep learning, practicing, testing new things locally, and eventually you‘ll be ready to launch your site live!