Dragon Migrate

No. Search and replace unserializes data before replacing, then reserializes it. Elementor data, which stores JSON with escaped slashes, is handled specifically.

Yes. Jobs run in small batches that are sized dynamically from how long the previous batch took and how much memory it used. A job resumes from its exact cursor position on the next tick.

In a randomly named directory inside your uploads folder, protected from direct access. Downloads are served through an authenticated endpoint, so the raw file path is never exposed.

Export with Find set to your old URL and Replace set to the new one, then import the file on the new site — or use a full-site archive to carry your files too. The search-replace is serialization-safe, so widgets, theme settings and page builder layouts survive the move.

WordPress stores many settings as serialized PHP strings that record each value's exact length. Editing them with a raw text replace corrupts those lengths, and WordPress silently discards the data. Dragon Migrate decodes values first, replaces inside them, and re-encodes them correctly.

Yes. A backup is taken automatically before every import and restore, and you can take one manually before any risky change. Restoring can itself be undone, because the current state is backed up first.

The plugin imposes no limit. Exports stream to disk in batches and imports resume from their exact position, so large databases finish on ordinary shared hosting. Big files can be placed in the migration directory over SFTP instead of uploading through the browser.

Not in this version.