Studio Sync

The Studio Sync feature allows you to synchronize a production or staging site with your WordPress Studio sites in either direction. This feature is available for all WordPress.com sites on the Business or Commerce plan, and Pressable sites with Jetpack enabled. This guide explains how to connect, pull, and push sites using Studio Sync.

Compatible sites

Studio Sync and Jetpack Backups

Studio Sync relies on Jetpack Backups to operate. To enable this, your site must have one of the following plugins activated and connected to WordPress.com:

• VaultPress Backup
• Jetpack Security
• Jetpack Complete

WordPress.com sites

Business and higher plans include a Jetpack Complete license, which is automatically activated by default. There is nothing more you need to do.

Pressable sites

The Jetpack Security plugin is included on Pressable sites, but you’ll need to activate and connect it manually. To sync a Pressable site with WordPress Studio, make sure you use the same WordPress.com account in both Studio and Jetpack on the Pressable site. If the accounts don’t match, the site won’t appear as an option to connect in Studio.

For detailed instructions how how to use Studio with Pressable sites, please refer to the Pressable documentation.

Connect WordPress Studio to an existing WordPress.com site

You can connect your Studio sites with any WordPress.com-hosted sites for which you are an Administrator and synchronize the content in either direction. Studio will save the connection details, so you can easily pull your site from WordPress.com and then push the changes you made in Studio back to the original site.

To connect a local Studio site to an existing production or staging site on WordPress.com:

1. Select the site you wish to connect from the Studio sidebar.
2. Open the Sync tab.
3. Log in to WordPress.com if you haven’t already.
4. Click the “Connect site” button to see available sites.
5. Select the site you want to connect to and confirm by clicking the Connect button.

If you’re working in a team, your teammates can repeat the same steps to collaborate on the same site.

Connect WordPress Studio to a new WordPress.com site

If you’d like to push your local site to a new WordPress.com-hosted site or staging site, you can purchase a WordPress.com hosting plan and set up Studio Sync all at once:

1. Select the site you wish to connect from the Studio sidebar.
2. Open the Sync tab.
3. Click the “Create new site” button to add a new site in the browser.
4. Select a plan for a new site and complete the checkout.
   • Note that a Studio site can only be synchronized with a WordPress.com site on a Business or Commerce plan. 
5. When the new site is added, accept the prompt to open Studio or click “Connect Studio” on your site’s Home screen.

Studio saves the connection to let you easily synchronize the Studio site with the connected WordPress.com site in either direction.

Pull a WordPress.com site into WordPress Studio

To start working on your WordPress.com site locally, first, ensure that you pull your production or staging site to Studio:

1. Select the site you wish to synchronize from the Studio sidebar.
2. Open the Sync tab.
3. Locate the connected WordPress.com site or connect to another one.
4. Click Pull to open the sync modal.

5. Choose to sync “All files and folders” or “Specific files and folders”.
6. Select the elements you want to synchronize to your production or staging environment. You can expand the plugins, themes, and uploads folders to select individual items.
7. Decide whether to include the Database in the sync.
8. Confirm the Pull action.

The Studio site will be replaced by the selected elements (like plugins or themes) and content (like media files and the database) from the remote WordPress.com. You can work on your site locally now, and the Studio site will be ready to be pushed to the live site anytime.

Push a WordPress Studio site to a WordPress.com site

When you are happy with the changes made to your Studio site, you can synchronize local changes to your WordPress.com site or staging site:

1. Select the site you wish to synchronize from the Studio sidebar.
2. Open the Sync tab.
3. Locate the connected WordPress.com site or connect to another one.
4. Click Push to open the sync modal.

5. Choose to sync “All files and folders” or “Specific files and folders”.
6. Select the elements you want to synchronize to your production or staging environment. You can expand the plugins, themes, and uploads folders to select individual items.
7. Decide whether to include the Database in the sync.
8. Confirm the Push action.

The selected elements of your WordPress.com site will be replaced by the files (like plugins or themes) and content (like media files and the database) from the Studio site.

Note that the syncing process will replace the whole database of your live site. If it’s a WooCommerce site, it would include orders, product changes, and customer data. Studio triggers a full site backup before sync so you can restore your site if you are not happy with the sync result, but use it with extra caution.