{"active_installs":600,"added":{"timestamp":1418342400,"timezone":"UTC"},"author":"Ben Balter","author_profile":{"url":"https://profiles.wordpress.org/benbalter/","alt":"Ben Balter"},"banners":[{"type":"high","url":"https://ps.w.org/jekyll-exporter/assets/banner-1544x500.png?rev=3073421"},{"type":"low","url":"https://ps.w.org/jekyll-exporter/assets/banner-772x250.png?rev=3073421"}],"changelog":"

\n","contributors":[{"slug":"benbalter","name":"Ben Balter","count":8,"is_owner":true,"links":{"profile":{"url":"https://profiles.wordpress.org/benbalter/","alt":"Ben Balter's profile"},"plugins":{"url":"https://profiles.wordpress.org/benbalter/#content-plugins","alt":"Ben Balter's plugins"},"activity":{"url":"https://profiles.wordpress.org/benbalter/#content-activity","alt":"Ben Balter's activity"},"translations":{"url":"https://profiles.wordpress.org/benbalter/#content-translations","alt":"Ben Balter's translations"}}},{"slug":"benbalter","name":"Ben Balter","count":2,"is_owner":false,"links":{"profile":{"url":"https://profiles.wordpress.org/benbalter/","alt":"Ben Balter's profile"},"plugins":{"url":"https://profiles.wordpress.org/benbalter/#content-plugins","alt":"Ben Balter's plugins"},"activity":{"url":"https://profiles.wordpress.org/benbalter/#content-activity","alt":"Ben Balter's activity"},"translations":{"url":"https://profiles.wordpress.org/benbalter/#content-translations","alt":"Ben Balter's translations"}}}],"description":"

Features

Converts all posts, pages, and settings from WordPress to Markdown and YAML for use in Jekyll (or Hugo or any other Markdown and YAML based site engine)
Export what your users see, not what the database stores (runs post content through the_content filter prior to export, allowing third-party plugins to modify the output)
Converts all post_content to Markdown
Converts all post_meta and fields within the wp_posts table to YAML front matter for parsing by Jekyll
Generates a _config.yml with all settings in the wp_options table
Outputs a single zip file with _config.yml, pages, and _posts folder containing .md files for each post in the proper Jekyll naming convention
Selective export: Export only specific categories, tags, or post types using WP-CLI
No settings. Just a single click.

Usage

Place plugin in /wp-content/plugins/ folder
Activate plugin in WordPress dashboard
Select Export to Jekyll from the Tools menu

More information

See the full documentation:

Security Policy

To report a security vulnerability, please email ben@balter.com.

Where to get help or report an issue

For getting started and general documentation, please browse, and feel free to contribute to the project documentation.
For support questions (“How do I”, “I can’t seem to”, etc.) please search and if not already answered, open a thread in the Support Forums.
For technical issues (e.g., to submit a bug or feature request) please search and if not already filed, open an issue on GitHub.

Things to check before reporting an issue

Are you using the latest version of WordPress?
Are you using the latest version of the plugin?
Does the problem occur even when you deactivate all plugins and use the default theme?
Have you tried deactivating and reactivating the plugin?
Has your issue already been reported?

What to include in an issue

What steps can another user take to recreate the issue?
What is the expected outcome of that action?
What is the actual outcome of that action?
Are there any screenshots or screencasts that may be helpful to include?
Only include one bug per issue. If you have discovered two bugs, please file two issues.

Command-line Usage

If you’re having trouble with your web server timing out before the export is complete, or if you just like terminal better, you may enjoy the command-line tool.

It works just like the plugin, but produces the zipfile on STDOUT:

`\n

php jekyll-export-cli.php > jekyll-export.zip
\n `

If using this method, you must run first cd into the wordpress-to-jekyll-exporter directory.

Alternatively, if you have WP-CLI installed, you can run:

`\n

wp jekyll-export > export.zip
\n `

The WP-CLI version will provide greater compatibility for alternate WordPress environments, such as when wp-content isn’t in the usual location.

Filtering by Category or Tag

You can export only specific categories or tags using the WP-CLI command. This is useful when you want to convert just one section of your WordPress site instead of the entire corpus.

Export posts from a specific category:

`bash\n

wp jekyll-export –category=technology > export.zip
\n `

Export posts from multiple categories:

`bash\n

wp jekyll-export –category=tech,news,updates > export.zip
\n `

Export posts with a specific tag:

`bash\n

wp jekyll-export –tag=featured > export.zip
\n `

Export only pages (or specific post types):

`bash\n

wp jekyll-export –post_type=page > export.zip
\n `

Combine filters:

`bash\n

wp jekyll-export –category=technology –tag=featured –post_type=post > export.zip
\n

`Using Filters in PHP`


\nIf you're using the plugin via PHP code or want more control, you can use the

jekyll_export_taxonomy_filters` filter:

`php\n

add_filter( ‘jekyll_export_taxonomy_filters’, function() {
\n return array(
\n ‘category’ => array( ‘technology’, ‘science’ ),
\n ‘post_tag’ => array( ‘featured’ ),
\n );
\n} );

// Then trigger the export
\nglobal $jekyll_export;
\n$jekyll_export->export();
\n `

Custom fields

When using custom fields (e.g. with the Advanced Custom fields plugin) you might have to register a filter to convert array style configs to plain values.

Available Filters

The plugin provides two filters for customizing post metadata:

jekyll_export_meta: Filters the metadata for a single post before it’s merged with taxonomy terms. Receives $meta array as the only parameter.
jekyll_export_post_meta: Filters the complete metadata array (including taxonomy terms) just before it’s written to the YAML frontmatter. Receives $meta array and $post object as parameters. This is the recommended filter for most use cases.

Note: As of the latest version, the plugin no longer automatically removes empty or falsy values from the frontmatter. All metadata is preserved by default. If you want to remove certain fields, you can use the jekyll_export_post_meta filter to customize this behavior.

By default, the plugin saves custom fields in an array structure that is exported as:

`php\n

[“my-bool”]=>
\n array(1) {
\n [0] => string(1) “1”
\n }
\n[“location”]=>
\n array(1) {
\n [0] => string(88) “My address”
\n }
\n `

And this leads to a YAML structure like:

`yaml\n

my-bool:
\n– “1”
\nlocation:
\n– ‘My address’
\n `

This is likely not the structure you expect or want to work with. You can convert it using a filter:

`php\n

add_filter( ‘jekyll_export_meta’, function($meta) {
\n foreach ($meta as $key => $value) {
\n if (is_array($value) && count($value) === 1 && array_key_exists(0, $value)) {
\n $meta[$key] = $value[0];
\n }
\n }

return $meta;\n

});
\n `

A more complete solution could look like that:

`php\n

add_filter( ‘jekyll_export_meta’, function($meta) {
\n foreach ($meta as $key => $value) {
\n // Advanced Custom Fields
\n if (is_array($value) && count($value) === 1 && array_key_exists(0, $value)) {
\n $value = maybe_unserialize($value[0]);
\n // Advanced Custom Fields: NextGEN Gallery Field add-on
\n if (is_array($value) && count($value) === 1 && array_key_exists(0, $value)) {
\n $value = $value[0];
\n }
\n }
\n // convert types
\n $value = match ($key) {
\n // Advanced Custom Fields: “true_false” type
\n ‘my-bool’ => (bool) $value,
\n default => $value
\n };
\n $meta[$key] = $value;
\n }

return $meta;\n

});
\n `

Removing Empty or Falsy Values

If you want to remove empty or falsy values from the frontmatter (similar to the pre-3.0.3 behavior), you can use the jekyll_export_post_meta filter:

`php\n

add_filter( ‘jekyll_export_post_meta’, function( $meta, $post ) {
\n foreach ( $meta as $key => $value ) {
\n // Remove falsy values except numeric 0
\n if ( ! is_numeric( $value ) && ! $value ) {
\n unset( $meta[ $key ] );
\n }
\n }
\n return $meta;
\n}, 10, 2 );
\n `

Custom post types

To export custom post types, you’ll need to add a filter (w.g. to your themes config file) to do the following:

`php\n

add_filter( ‘jekyll_export_post_types’, function() {
\n return array(‘post’, ‘page’, ‘you-custom-post-type’);
\n});
\n `

The custom post type will be exported as a Jekyll collection. You’ll need to initialize it in the resulting Jekyll site’s _config.yml.

Developing locally

Option 1: Using Dev Containers (Recommended)

The easiest way to get started is using VS Code Dev Containers or GitHub Codespaces:

Install VS Code and the Dev Containers extension
git clone https://github.com/benbalter/wordpress-to-jekyll-exporter
Open the folder in VS Code
Click “Reopen in Container” when prompted
Wait for the container to build and dependencies to install
Access WordPress at http://localhost:8088

The devcontainer includes:
\n– Pre-configured WordPress and MySQL
\n– All PHP extensions and Composer dependencies
\n– VS Code extensions for PHP development, debugging, and testing
\n– WordPress coding standards configured

See .devcontainer/README.md for more details.

Option 2: Manual Setup

Prerequisites

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install composer
sudo apt-get install php7.3-xml
sudo apt-get install php7.3-mysql
sudo apt-get install php7.3-zip
sudo apt-get install php-mbstring
sudo apt-get install subversion
sudo apt-get install mysql-server
sudo apt-get install php-pear
sudo pear install PHP_CodeSniffer

Bootstrap & Setup

git clone https://github.com/benbalter/wordpress-to-jekyll-exporter
cd wordpress-to-jekyll-exporter
script/bootstrap
script/setup

Option 3: Docker Compose Only

git clone https://github.com/benbalter/wordpress-to-jekyll-exporter
docker-compose up
open localhost:8088

Running tests

script/cibuildPerformance Optimizations
\n

This document describes the performance optimizations implemented in Static Site Exporter to improve export speed and reduce resource usage, especially for large WordPress sites.

Overview

The following optimizations have been implemented to address performance bottlenecks identified in the export process:

1. Optimized Database Queries

Problem: The original get_posts() method executed a separate SQL query for each post type, then merged the results using array_merge().

`php\n

// Before (inefficient)
\nforeach ( $post_types as $post_type ) {
\n $ids = $wpdb->get_col( $wpdb->prepare( “SELECT ID FROM {$wpdb->posts} WHERE post_type = %s”, $post_type ) );
\n $posts = array_merge( $posts, $ids );
\n}
\n `

Solution: Changed to a single SQL query using an IN clause.

`php\n

// After (optimized)
\n$placeholders = implode( ‘, ‘, array_fill( 0, count( $post_types ), ‘%s’ ) );
\n$query = “SELECT ID FROM {$wpdb->posts} WHERE post_type IN ($placeholders)”;
\n$posts = $wpdb->get_col( $wpdb->prepare( $query, $post_types ) );
\n `

Impact: Reduces database round trips from N (number of post types, typically 3) to 1, significantly improving performance on sites with many posts.

2. User Data Caching

Problem: The convert_meta() method called get_userdata() for every post, resulting in redundant database queries for posts by the same author (N+1 query problem).

`php\n

// Before (inefficient)
\n‘author’ => get_userdata( $post->post_author )->display_name,
\n `

Solution: Implemented a static cache to store user data across post conversions.

`php\n

// After (optimized)
\nstatic $user_cache = array();
\nif ( ! isset( $user_cache[ $post->post_author ] ) ) {
\n $user_data = get_userdata( $post->post_author );
\n $user_cache[ $post->post_author ] = $user_data ? $user_data->display_name : ”;
\n}
\n‘author’ => $user_cache[ $post->post_author ],
\n `

Impact: Eliminates redundant database queries for author information. On a site with 1000 posts by 10 authors, this reduces queries from 1000 to 10.

3. HTML to Markdown Converter Reuse

Problem: A new HtmlConverter instance was created for every post, wasting memory and CPU cycles on object initialization.

`php\n

// Before (inefficient)
\n$converter = new HtmlConverter( $converter_options );
\n$converter->getEnvironment()->addConverter( new TableConverter() );
\n `

Solution: Reuse a single static instance across all post conversions.

`php\n

// After (optimized)
\nstatic $converter = null;
\nif ( null === $converter ) {
\n $converter_options = apply_filters( ‘jekyll_export_markdown_converter_options’, array( ‘header_style’ => ‘atx’ ) );
\n $converter = new HtmlConverter( $converter_options );
\n $converter->getEnvironment()->addConverter( new TableConverter() );
\n}
\n `

Impact: Reduces object creation overhead. On a site with 1000 posts, this eliminates 999 unnecessary object instantiations.

4. Improved File Operations

Problem: The copy_recursive() method used the legacy dir() API which is slower than modern alternatives.

`php\n

// Before (inefficient)
\n$dir = dir( $source );
\nwhile ( $entry = $dir->read() ) {
\n // process files
\n}
\n$dir->close();
\n `

Solution: Replaced with scandir() which is faster and more memory-efficient.

`php\n

// After (optimized)
\n$entries = @scandir( $source );
\nif ( false === $entries ) {
\n return false;
\n}
\nforeach ( $entries as $entry ) {
\n // process files
\n}
\n `

Impact: Improves directory traversal speed, particularly noticeable when copying large upload directories.

5. Upload Directory Filtering

New Feature: Added filters to allow skipping or excluding directories during the upload copy process.

Skip Entire Uploads:
\n php \nadd_filter( 'jekyll_export_skip_uploads', '__return_true' );

Exclude Specific Directories (e.g., cache or temporary files):
\n php \nadd_filter( 'jekyll_export_excluded_upload_dirs', function( $excluded ) { \n return array_merge( $excluded, array( '/cache/', '/tmp/', '/backup/' ) ); \n} );

Impact: Allows large sites to:
\n– Skip uploads entirely if they’re served from a CDN
\n– Exclude cache directories that aren’t needed in the export
\n– Reduce export time and file size for very large installations

Performance Benchmarks

Estimated Improvements

Based on the optimizations, expected performance improvements for a typical WordPress site:

Site Size
\n Before
\n After
\n Improvement

Small (100 posts, 5 authors)
\n ~5s
\n ~3s
\n 40% faster

Medium (1000 posts, 20 authors)
\n ~45s
\n ~20s
\n 55% faster

Large (10000 posts, 50 authors)
\n ~8min
\n ~3min
\n 63% faster

Note: Actual performance depends on server hardware, database configuration, and content complexity.

Database Query Reduction

Operation
\n Queries Before
\n Queries After
\n Reduction

Get posts (3 post types)
\n 3
\n 1
\n 67%

User data (100 posts, 5 authors)
\n 100
\n 5
\n 95%

Total for 100 posts
\n 103
\n 6
\n 94%

Backward Compatibility

All optimizations maintain backward compatibility:
\n– All existing WordPress hooks and filters continue to work
\n– No changes to the exported file format
\n– No changes to the public API
\n– New filters are opt-in and don’t affect default behavior

Additional Optimization Tips

For even better performance on large sites:

\n
Increase PHP memory limit: Add to wp-config.php:
\n php \ndefine( 'WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '512M' );
\n
\n
Use WP-CLI: The command-line interface bypasses web server timeouts:
\n bash \nwp jekyll-export > export.zip
\n
\n
Skip uploads if using CDN: If your uploads are served from a CDN, you can skip copying them:
\n php \nadd_filter( 'jekyll_export_skip_uploads', '__return_true' );
\n
\n
Enable object caching: Use Redis or Memcached to speed up WordPress core queries.
\n

Technical Notes

Why Static Variables?

Static variables in PHP persist across function calls within the same request. This makes them ideal for caching data during a batch export process where the same function is called many times (once per post).

Thread Safety

These optimizations are safe for:
\n– Single-threaded PHP execution (standard)
\n– WordPress multisite installations
\n– WP-CLI execution

They are NOT designed for:
\n– Multi-threaded or async PHP environments (not common in WordPress)
\n– Long-running daemon processes (not the intended use case)

Future Optimization Opportunities

Potential areas for future improvement:

Bulk metadata loading: Pre-load all post meta in a single query
Taxonomy term caching: Pre-load all terms to avoid per-post queries
Streaming ZIP creation: Write directly to ZIP instead of creating temp directory
Parallel processing: Use multiple processes for very large exports (WP-CLI only)

Questions?

For questions about these optimizations or to report performance issues:
\n– Open an issue
\n– View the documentation

Performance Tips for Large Sites

If you’re running a large WordPress site with thousands of posts or gigabytes of uploads, here are some tips to make the export process faster and more efficient.

Quick Wins

1. Use WP-CLI Instead of Browser Export

Browser-based exports are subject to PHP execution time limits (typically 30-300 seconds). Use WP-CLI for unlimited execution time:

`bash\n

wp jekyll-export > export.zip
\n `

2. Skip Uploads if You Don’t Need Them

If your images and files are served from a CDN or you plan to handle them separately, you can skip the uploads directory entirely:

`php\n

// Add to your theme’s functions.php or a custom plugin
\nadd_filter( ‘jekyll_export_skip_uploads’, ‘__return_true’ );
\n `

This can save significant time and disk space, especially if you have gigabytes of media files.

3. Exclude Cache and Temporary Directories

Many sites accumulate cache files and temporary uploads that aren’t needed in the export:

`php\n

add_filter( ‘jekyll_export_excluded_upload_dirs’, function( $excluded ) {
\n return array_merge( $excluded, array(
\n ‘/cache/’,
\n ‘/tmp/’,
\n ‘/backup/’,
\n ‘/wc-logs/’, // WooCommerce logs
\n ‘/wpml/’, // WPML cache
\n ) );
\n} );
\n `

Performance Improvements in Version 2.4.3+

Recent optimizations …

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