Export and inventory current content

Before migrating to ButterCMS, audit and export your existing content. Learn how to inventory what you have so you’re ready to map and import it.

Content inventory

Create a comprehensive inventory of your existing content before doing anything else:

• Content types - Blog posts, pages, products, etc.
• Fields per type - Text, images, dates, relationships
• Field constraints - Required, max length, formats
• Relationships - How content types relate to each other
• Taxonomies - Categories, tags, hierarchies
• Media assets - Images, documents, videos
• Metadata - SEO fields, publication info, authors

Inventory template

Content Type	Field Name	Field Type	Required	Notes
Blog Post	title	Text	Yes	Max 100 chars
Blog Post	body	HTML	Yes	Rich content
Blog Post	excerpt	Text	No	Max 300 chars
Blog Post	featured_image	Image	No	1200x630 recommended
Blog Post	author	Reference	Yes	Links to Author
Blog Post	categories	Reference	No	Many-to-many
Blog Post	published_date	DateTime	Yes
Author	name	Text	Yes
Author	bio	Text	No
Author	avatar	Image	No

Export tools by platform

WordPress export

# Using WP-CLI
wp export --dir=/path/to/exports

# Or use Dashboard: Tools → Export

WordPress exports as XML, which can be parsed and transformed.

If you’re migrating WordPress blog posts, ButterCMS can import them for you automatically — just export your content and email the file to [e-mail]. Note that this applies to blog posts only, not pages or custom post types. See WordPress to ButterCMS for details.

Contentful export

# Install Contentful CLI
npm install -g contentful-cli

# Export space
contentful space export \
  --space-id YOUR_SPACE_ID \
  --export-dir ./export

Drupal export

# Using Drush
drush content-export

# Or use Views Data Export module

Custom database export

-- Export to JSON-compatible format
SELECT
  JSON_OBJECT(
    'title', title,
    'slug', slug,
    'body', body,
    'published_at', published_at
  ) AS content
FROM posts
WHERE status = 'published';