If you need to import a WordPress subscriber database, read this first

I tried to use this plugin to migrate my subscriber list from my old WordPress site to my new one. Unfortunately, this plugin is not actually built for importing a WordPress subscriber list with its encrypted passwords. However, the plugin can get the job mostly done; see end of review for some important instructions.

That the plugin is not designed to import encrypted passwords is not a fault in the plugin (it is merely a limitation), and thus I was not going to leave a review, but unfortunately the developers are so childish and nasty when responding to what they perceive as stupid questions or criticism (no matter how constructive) that it warrants a warning.

As you can see from the other negative reviews, those users also tried to migrate an existing WordPress subscriber database. Yet not only do the developers claim I am the only one in 10,000+ active users to have this problem — and thereby implying that I am an idiot — they simultaneously tell me that, had I only bothered to read the support questions, I would have learned that the plugin is not intended to achieve the importation of encrypted passwords: “Yes, as you can read in other questions, we use the WP API to load passwords and we need it in plain text, as it is. This plugin is not planned to import passwords from an export, this is planned to import passwords that has been filled by users (with no encryption).”

So clearly I am NOT the only one to have erroneously believed I could use this plugin as hoped. In fact, in the plugin’s support forum, Javier stated the plugin has had over 100,000 downloads. But there are only 10,000+ active installs. So that’s a 90% abandon rate. So his accusation on the support forum — “There are 10.000+ active users and the only one which currently have this kind of problems is you” — is blatantly misleading.

I have not yet scoured WordPress to find a plugin that can import a WP subscriber list and passwords, but if no such plugin exists then you can use this one to get most of the job done. Note the following:

1. When exporting a subscriber list to CSV using your PHPAdmin, the column headings are not included. You will need to add these yourself.

2. In two key columns, you will have to use the column headings created by the plugin developers, NOT the ones created by WordPress. What WordPress calls “user_login”, you need to change to “Username”; what WordPress calls “user_email”, you need to change to “Email”.

3. Is it essential that you reorder the columns to match the plugin’s order: Username first, Email second.

4. You need to delete the user_ID column. If you leave it in, and especially in its default first position, the plugin will interpret this as the username. And you don’t need the user_ID anyway; it’s just the number assigned to each new user in order of registration; when you import the database, a new user ID will be assigned.

5. Also delete the user_status column because you will be assigning your imports as subscribers anyway, and if you leave this column intact then the user_status is unnecessarily added in the “extra profile information” that the plugin creates.

6. Also delete the user_activation_key column or the same thing will occur.

7. Leave user_nicename intact as this is imported as the user’s nickname.

8. Also leave in user_url as this is imported correctly.

9. The user_registered data may or may not be imported; I don’t know because it is hidden data and I would have to export what I have just imported to test. (Sorry, no time today.)

10. No matter how I tried to order and rename the user_email column, the email address did not show up in the final results. It wasn’t until I copied the email address column and pasted it OVER the user_password column (thereby deleting that column) that I got the password import to work. So for some reason leaving in the password column, with its encryption format, messes up the importation of email addresses. Go figure.

11. Regardless of #10, delete the user_password column. As noted at start, this plugin cannot import WordPress’s encrypted passwords. The final result is that your subscribers will be there for you to contact but if they want to change their profile, their old passwords will not work; the user will have to employ the “forgot password” option to reset their password. You can easily send out an email to inform your subscribers about this.

Hope this helps.

(And a note to Javier: this should be in your documentation. Feel free to copy.)