How to move WordPress com → .org 🚚 (also: install local WordPress on XAMPP)

Moving your site from WordPress[.]com to a self-hosted WordPress[.]org setup is a massive step toward total creative control.

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June 30, 2026 8:00am EDT

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(Shortcuts: How to Migrate WordPress.com to WordPress.org – Complete Guide // How to Install WordPress on XAMPP Locally // Serve Scaled Images in WordPress)

Hey there,

Karol here, from Themeisle.

Here's what's been going on this week in WordPress:

Moving your site from WordPress[.]com to a self-hosted WordPress[.]org setup is a massive step toward total creative control. It might feel a bit intimidating to handle the migration yourself, but the long-term benefits of *owning* your platform are well worth the effort. Here's Colin's guide to help you move everything over without losing any content. 🚚

If you want to test new features or designs without any risk, setting up a local WP environment using XAMPP can help a lot. It turns your computer into a private server where you can break things and experiment to your heart's content before going live. Check out my step-by-step tutorial on how to get your local WP site running today. 💻

So what's with that "serve scaled images" warning from your recent Google speed test? Well, it's actually a great opportunity to improve your load times. Resizing your images to fit their display containers keeps your site snappy and your visitors happy. Learn how to automate this process on your WordPress site from our performance optimization guide. 🖼️

Video of the week 🎥

How to Add a File Upload Field to WooCommerce Product Pages (Using PPOM plugin)

Tool of the week 🔧

This lib lets you build Notion-like content editors using TypeScript. Kind of interesting if you're building any tool that could use UI like that but don't really want to craft it from the ground up. Check out Yoopta.

What else's been going on

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Cheers,
-Karol