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I have an older WordPress site that is going away but I am taking the content from the site and importing it into my new WordPress site.

To do this, I used the WordPress Export tool, located in my dashboard, to create an export file that included all content, including images. The export process created the export file, which I successfully imported into my other WordPress site.

I noticed that if an imported post that resulted from a search or linked in the sidebar had a thumbnail, the URL linked to that thumbnail linked back to the original WordPress site - The site were I created the export file.

How do I fix this?

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2 Answers

The easiest way is to use the Cache Image plugin, which 'sideloads' images in your posts that are from other domains.

I've had mixed results, mainly because it seems to not work well for thousands of posts and images - if your site is smaller you may have better results.

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I ended up editing the import XML file directly; a quick search and replace did the trick –  Tom Castonzo Apr 28 '11 at 12:47
The only problem with that approach (which I was going to suggest), is that it doesn't add the images as attachments, and so it's possible that themes which use post-thumbnails and Featured images might not work. However, if you don't need to do that, then you're set :) –  anu Apr 28 '11 at 12:50
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You could have used the Search Regex plugin to search for the image tags and replace the URL with your new URL. However, now that you have manually edited the XML you will want to pull the images into the media manager.

The plugin, Add From Server, searches for images that are not already in the image manager and adds them. This makes them usable from the media manager just like the other images you upload directly into WordPress.

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