Computer And You

Making Your Computer Experience Better

You are here: Home / How To / How to move your Wordpress.com email subscribers to Wordpress.org the easy way

How to move your WordPress.com email subscribers to WordPress.org the easy way

By 34 Comments

Share this article

Moving from WordPress.com to self hosted WordPress.org is not the same as moving from Blogger to WordPress. The one thing which concerns any user in moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org is the fear of losing the huge chunk of email subscriber he/she might have earned in his/her popular WordPress.com blog. Everyone wants to retain their previous readers list but the problem is that none of the standard feed service like feedburner or feedblitz provide an option for importing the email list. The same problem occurred to me when I decided to move my computerandu.wordpress.com blog to self hosted wordpress.org at computerandyou.net. I had around 2100 email subscriber on my previous blog which I was about to lose (Thank God, I did not).

In this post I’ll describe in easy steps how to transfer all your wordpress.com email subscriber to wordpress.org. Please follow the steps:

Export the Subscribers from WordPress.com:

  • Login into your wordpress.com account.
  • In your dashboard, select Site Stats
  • In there look for Total Followers and Shares section
  • Click on the Active Followers link
  • In there click on the Email Followers link
  • Down on this page you will find the option: Download all as CSV
  • Click on it and save the CSV file

Import the Subscribers into WordPress.org:

  • To import the subscriber list we need a plugin CSV user import.
  • Install this plugin and activate it.
  • You will see a new ‘Import’ option under the existing ‘Users‘ menu area.
  • Go in to Import option and upload the previously downloaded subscriber list in CSV format.
  • You have successfully transferred all your subscriber into wordpress.org.

Now you can use any plugin like Email Users to manage the Email Newsletters. H2FZ9UXT3JQB

Hope it helps you. Questions and suggestions are always welcome. Don’t forget to subscribe :)

  • http://www.BethTerry.com/ Beth Terry, CSP

    Just to clarify for everyone – here’s what the CSV plugin says – so you want to make sure and do this before you import – Make sure your Excel file is set up properly, and decide on a way to give everyone a username. If they don’t have a username, you might not be able to manage the files. You could have all passwords be something simple so they can log on and change it. I’m doing automatic usernames of first letter of first name and first 4 letters of last name

    The CSV file should be in the following format:
    firstname,
    lastname,
    username,
    password (plain text),
    email address

    Please make sure you back up your database before proceeding!

    • http://itsfoss.com/ Abhishek Prakash

      Thanks for the tip Beth.

  • http://www.BethTerry.com/ Beth Terry, CSP

    Bless you! That was a piece of cake! I appreciate the assistance!!

  • Goddess Isis

    OMG you’re the best. Wow.

  • Paola Agostini

    great tahnks a lot

  • Francesca

    great!Thank you!

    • https://computerandyou.net/ Abhishek Prakash

      You are welcome

  • youstrikemyfancy.com

    thank you so!

  • Meredith

    Hi!
    I can’t figure out what I am doing wrong. I downloaded my CSV, saved it as .csv, but when I try to import it, it won’t import. It says this:
    Skipped 35 posts (most likely due to empty title, body and excerpt).Imported 0 posts and 0 comments in 0.03 seconds.

    • https://computerandyou.net/ Abhishek Prakash

      Hmm.. I should have it clarified in the post. When you save the .csv file, try to see its content. If there are just emails, then add one column for Firstname, Lastname and rename the Email column as email (i.e. the first row works as heading). Try it and do tell me if it works so that I can update the post.

      • Meredith

        Hm. I don’t know al the first names and last names. All I have are their e-mail addresses.

        • https://computerandyou.net/ Abhishek Prakash

          No need to fill anything there. Just keep the columns blank.

          • Meredith

            Hey – -said the same thing. just to make sure — I have an excel document with one column labelled first name, one labelled last name, both blank, and then a third labelled e-mail and underneath are all the e-mail address. It is saved as a .csv file.
            ??
            Thanks so much for trying to help!
            Meredith

            • https://computerandyou.net/ Abhishek Prakash

              Yes thats it. Now you should be able to import it. Do tell me if you succeed :)

              • Meredith

                Sorry, I’m still getting the same error message. I’m stumped!
                Thanks again,
                Meredith

              • https://computerandyou.net/ Abhishek Prakash

                Ill repeat the whole procedure again on my own once i get back home. Dont loose hope till then :)

              • Meredith

                You are so kind! Thanks!

              • https://computerandyou.net/ Abhishek Prakash

                I tried again .. using the same method.. it worked.. could you please try again if it does not work could you please write all the steps which you took.. I am thinking of making a video of it now…

              • Meredith

                Hey,

                Thanks so much — but I actually had WordPress staff move my followers over for me a few weeks ago. Im not sure what I was doing wrong, but I’m sure it was something silly that 99.9% of people would not have a problem with.
                Thanks again!!

                Meredith

              • Digireado

                Hi, I tried doing this, keeping columns empty but using headings you said and although says imported, when I go all users there are saying moved, but no details in there. Under stats page still only showing people who have subscribed since I moved site…. any ideas what I’m doing wrong?

              • https://computerandyou.net/ Abhishek Prakash

                Could you please wait up to this weekend? I must edit this post with pics to hep people in getting this done. Please bear with me.

  • London Cabbie

    WordPress.com have changed the site stats page. There appears no way to download a .csv file. Please help I need to keep my 1,000 email followers when I move to a self-hosted WordPress platform.

    • https://computerandyou.net/ Abhishek Prakash

      Hi… In site stats.. go down and look for Total Followers and Shares and then look for blog followers..click on it and there will a tab for email followers. Down on that page is the option to download it as CSV.
      If you still face problem, tell me, i’ll add screenshots.

  • Murtaza

    Truly appreciated your guidelines. It works successfully. Thank You Very Much Abhishek.

    • https://computerandyou.net/ Abhishek Prakash

      welcome Murtaza

  • Asianperssuassion

    Hi. It says it was successfully imported, but now I can’t find them anywhere.

    • https://computerandyou.net/ Abhishek Prakash

      Hi,
      You can see them in your dashboard->Users-All
      Now you need to use some other plugins to send email newsletter.

  • Julesonthewater

    Thank you so much! You saved me! This post should be included on the wordpress.org site- they are telling everyone to just accept that their followers are gone!

    • https://computerandyou.net/ Abhishek Prakash

      You are welcome Jules

  • Fruitvegan

    huh, thank god! another thing is, how can you keep the facebook-likes displayed on your page? thank you loads!!

    • Fruitvegan

      oh, i just figured it out. duh! :)

      • https://computerandyou.net/ Abhishek Prakash

        Hi Fruitvegan,
        You mind sharing it with us.. 😛

  • jesterqueen1

    You just saved me a heart attack. I have a lot fewer followers, but I still don’t want to lose them.

    • https://computerandyou.net/ Abhishek Prakash

      Hi jesterqueen1,
      One should never loose followers. It would be much better if wordpress include this feature in jetpack.

      By the way you can try mailchimp for sending the newsletter. It is awesome and very easy to use.

C&Y is running with Wordpress SEO Plugin by SEOPressor