Installing WordPress Locally - Mac and Windows

A while back, I was working on a client’s WordPress theme, and out of nowhere, my internet went down! I was pretty screwed, as it was down for hours. For a WordPress theme developer, internet down time can cost you some serious cash.

A couple weeks later, my web host went down because of a server crash. Again, time is money for someone who does freelance work. I got really frustrated, and decided to do something about it.

I went looking for something that would allow me to work, even if I had no internet connection at all.

Installing WordPress on Windows

What I found was XAMPP. Because I use a Windows desktop at home, this was perfect for me. It basically does everything for you to set up WordPress. It installs PHP, MySQL, PHPMyAdmin, WordPress, and Apache (web server). It has a couple of steps that you need to follow, but if you can install WordPress on your web host, you won’t have any problem installing it locally on your Windows box.

But recently, I bought a MacBook. And since I take working vacations where I use my laptop to do work, I needed a solution for my mac too (although technically, I could just use XAMPP, since I did dual-boot my MacBook with Windows).

Installing WordPress on your Mac

1. XAMPP for MacOSX

This was really cool, since I was already familiar with the XAMPP program. Click here to visit the page and download the program.

2. MAMP

This is the solution I found via Ben Bleikamp, one of my colleagues at the Blog Herald. He also gives a nice little tutorial on how to install it and get it running on your mac.

So no matter what operating system you use (ok, Linux users should be able to install WordPress manually), you can get WordPress installed and running, so you never have to depend on that net connection to develop your themes. It’s saved my butt quite a few times, and I imagine it will yours too.

Posted May 17, 2007 by Nathan Rice | Filed Under Blog 

Comments

4 Responses to “Installing WordPress Locally - Mac and Windows”

  1. Dubai Travels Guy on June 1st, 2007 11:11 am

    Thanks for the short and informative post on doing such stuff locally actually i tried once using a software to use on my windows box but it seemed to complicated but this is rather easier and will surely be spending more time making themes now :)

    Take Care
    Regards

  2. Installing WordPress Locally - Mac and Windows / Web Words / WizarDev on June 25th, 2007 12:20 pm

    [...] Installing WordPress Locally - Mac and Windows and XAMPP from Apache [...]

  3. Oliver Smith on June 28th, 2007 10:00 am

    Cool, Thanks for the info. Ive been trying to find this for a while.

  4. Dave on July 30th, 2007 12:57 am

    I tried asking Ben about this on the post you linked to, but the comment wouldn’t post for some reason…
    I’ve set up MAMP fine and got it running, but:

    How do I load my current, backed up, WP database from online? Or, can you ’sync’ your MAMP blog and online blog.

    Going with the quick install.php gave me a clean (new install blog). I had put all my backed up folders and stuff in /htdocs/wordpress, but obviously that doesn’t do anything with the DB.

    Or was the idea of using MAMP more for playing with themes and design rather than updating your online blog posts by ’syncing’ any you might have done offline?

    Thanks, if you’re able to explain my confusion

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