What is Local by Flywheel?<\/h2>\n
Local by Flywheel \u2013 aka Local \u2013 is a local development environment, optimised for WordPress. It\u2019s an alternative to similar tools such as XAMPP, MAMP and WAMP.<\/p>\n
Local by Flywheel does the heavy lifting for you behind the scenes so that you can get on with developing sites quickly. A new WordPress site can be installed in a few clicks \u2013 no more downloading WordPress, no editing wp-config.php or fiddling with ports! Local handles all that for you.<\/p>\n
Chris Coyier of CSS Tricks is a fan, as are developers and teachers Carrie Dils and Tonya Mork.<\/p>\n
Installing Local by Flywheel<\/h2>\n
Local by Flywheel is available for both Windows and Mac, and free for download. The current version is 2.2.4.<\/p>\n
![\"Download](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Local-by-Flywheel-600.png\")
Just supply a few details to download it.<\/p>\n
Download Local by Flywheel<\/a><\/p>\n Go through the initial setup. It should only take a few minutes.<\/p>\n When Local is done installing, it\u2019s time to create your first site!<\/p>\n Creating a site is a 3-step process:<\/p>\n The first step is to name your site. Whatever you choose will be copied across to your domain and path (see the Advanced Options).<\/p>\n By default, your site domain will end in .local, but you can change this to another suffix if you prefer e.g. You can in fact change both the name and the local URL later, but not the site path. So if you want to choose a custom path, do it now.<\/p>\n Next, you have a choice of server environments. If you host with Flywheel, you\u2019ll want to use their Preferred<\/strong> option, which mirrors their own web hosting.<\/p>\n Otherwise, you can select your own Custom<\/strong> setup, with the choices of:<\/p>\n If you want a multisite<\/strong>, be sure to click on the Advanced Options to get the choice, as this can\u2019t be changed later. Local supports both subdomain and subdirectory multisites.<\/p>\n You can save your preferred username\/password across all your sites if you want.<\/p>\n Once you hit Add Site<\/strong>, wait a minute or two, then you\u2019re done. Hurrah!<\/p>\n So what can you do next? Let\u2019s look at some of Local by Flywheel\u2019s features.<\/p>\n Your first view is of the Site Setup. From here you can:<\/p>\n SSL support is there but you need to enable it: go to the SSL<\/strong> tab and Trust<\/strong> the certificate.<\/p>\n You can then go to e.g. If you typically build sites with the same basic setup, save time by saving your site as a Blueprint<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Create your site and add your commonly used theme(s) and plugins (say, all your favorite WPMU DEV plugins<\/a>\u00a0or try out some of our free plugins<\/a>). Then in Local by Flywheel, right-click the site you want under Local Sites and choose Save as Blueprint<\/strong>.<\/p>\n You can then easily re-use this configuration when you add a new site.<\/p>\n You could even have Blueprints for different types of sites, e.g.<\/p>\n Your Blueprint will be a snapshot in time. So if your plugins or themes need updates by the next time you want to use the same combo, update them and resave the site as a new Blueprint.<\/p>\n Any Local site can be cloned to create a new Local site. The process is very similar to making a Blueprint, except that the configuration isn\u2019t stored for reuse.<\/p>\n Exporting creates a zip file of your entire site configuration. You\u2019d use this if you want to move a site into a Local installation on another computer.<\/p>\n Imagine you are developing a plugin and want to check that it runs with different versions of PHP. No problem! It\u2019s super simple to change PHP version with Local.<\/p>\n From Site Setup, select a Custom setup for your Local Environment. Then you can simply upgrade or downgrade PHP on the site you are working on. Or indeed, change web server.<\/p>\n This works because each site lives in its own container powered by Docker.<\/p>\n When you do this, there are a couple of warnings:<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t have hosting with staging as a feature, working on a local copy of a live site is a very good way to test out changes without risking mishaps.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re lucky enough to be using Flywheel\u2019s hosting service, copying a site is easy. You can log in and connect it to Flywheel<\/a>, then pull live sites. into Local.<\/p>\n Note that copying multisite installs is not supported<\/strong> at this time.<\/p>\n Otherwise, copying your live site is relatively simple. All you need is:<\/p>\n Move the SQL file inside the wp-content folder, then zip the folder.<\/p>\n Then drag and drop<\/strong> this zip file into the Local by Flywheel window. The app does all the hard work for you in recreating the site, including rewriting all the URLs. Sweet!<\/p>\n You won\u2019t want Google Analytics running and logging visits on your local install. Depending on how you\u2019ve entered your tracking code, you can:<\/p>\n The same goes for the Facebook pixel and any other tracking codes you might be using.<\/p>\n Jetpack hasn\u2019t played well for me when I\u2019ve duplicated a site using it locally. I find it wants to disconnect my live site from WordPress.com. For this reason, I tend to disable it on Local by renaming the You can also deactivate any security plugins like Defender when you\u2019re working on a Local by Flywheel site. Remember to reactivate them later if you\u2019re making the site live.<\/p>\n When you\u2019ve worked for some time on a local site, but it\u2019s not ready for production, you might want to share it with a colleague or see how it renders on a phone. How can you do that?<\/p>\n Instead of moving it to a testing server, Local by Flywheel has a nifty \u201cLive link\u201d<\/strong> option courtesy of ngrok<\/a>. Enabling this will give you a live URL to use from any device.<\/p>\n Like Mission: Impossible, your link will self-destruct after a certain period of time \u2013 namely, the time when you shut down Local by Flywheel. That\u2019s fine for getting quick feedback, but not so great if your colleague or client gets back to you in a week! Every time you re-enable the live link, you\u2019ll get a different URL.<\/p>\n Flywheel users can use their Connect option to push single install WordPress sites to Flywheel\u2019s hosting.<\/p>\n Not hosting with Flywheel? One option is to use the Duplicator plugin to move the site to a live server. I used Rae\u2019s tutorial on migrating WordPress from localhost to live<\/a> and it worked perfectly.<\/p>\n Make sure that Duplicator cleans up the files it creates when it\u2019s done. The I\u2019m used to viewing the database for a WordPress site on phpMyAdmin. Local by Flywheel uses Adminer<\/strong> by default, which is not such a nice user interface, but it gets the job done.<\/p>\n Alternatively, if you\u2019re a Mac user you can download and use Sequel Pro<\/strong>.<\/p>\n One disadvantage of developing locally is that transactional emails aren\u2019t sent by WordPress.<\/p>\n Fortunately, under the Utilities tab you\u2019ll find the MailHog<\/strong> tool, which logs any emails sent locally. If you\u2019re testing out any plugin which sends email – such as Forminator Pro, Events+ or WooCommerce – you can make sure their emails are working correctly.<\/p>\n Note that if you restart Local by Flywheel, any emails from your previous session are not<\/strong> stored \u2013 so you are better off checking MailHog as you go along.<\/p>\n Right-click on any running site and you can open it via SSH. WP-CLI is already installed; type Use WP-CLI to handle tasks quickly. For example, activate all plugins on a site, or delete all transients.<\/p>\n To learn more about WP-CLI, read:<\/p>\n Git is not installed on Local by Flywheel, but you can add it easily enough. Follow the Deployment with git<\/strong> section in this article: Using \u2018Local by FlyWheel\u2019 as a Local Development Workflow for WordPress<\/a>.<\/p>\n Your preferences for creating sites are stored in the Preferences<\/strong> area. On Windows, access it via the hamburger menu in the top right corner. On Mac, go to Local by Flywheel > Preferences in the menu.<\/p>\n You can also see all your Blueprints and try running some experimental features.<\/p>\n And if you use XDebug and PHP Storm, there\u2019s an add-on to integrate them with Local here too.<\/p>\n Local by Flywheel is supported by a community forum<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Welcome](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Welcome-to-Local-by-Flywheel-600.png\")
Creating a new site<\/h2>\n
\n
Setup site<\/h3>\n
![\"Setup](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Local-Setup-site-600.png\")
my-first-site.dev<\/code>.<\/p>\nSetup environment<\/h3>\n
![\"Setup](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Setup-Custom-environment-600.png\")
\n
Setup WordPress<\/h3>\n
![\"Set](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Set-up-WordPress-600.png\")
Site Setup view<\/h2>\n
![\"Site](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/My-First-Site-site-setup-600.png\")
\n
SSL<\/h2>\n
![\"Trust](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Trust-SSL-600.png\")
https:\/\/my-first-site.local<\/code> and see a green padlock.<\/p>\nBlueprints<\/h2>\n
![\"Create](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Create-site-from-Blueprint-600.png\")
\n
Cloning a site<\/h2>\n
Exporting a site<\/h2>\n
Switch your server environment<\/h2>\n
\n
![\"Changing](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Change-your-local-environment-600.png\")
Copying a live site to Local by Flywheel<\/h2>\n
\n
Local development considerations<\/h3>\n
\n
jetpack<\/code> plugin folder to _jetpack<\/code>.<\/p>\nCreating a live link for your site<\/h2>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/A-Local-site-ready-for-remote-viewing-600.png\")
![\"An](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/ngrok-Live-link-600.jpg\")
Moving a site from Local by Flywheel to a live server<\/h2>\n
local.phpinfo.php<\/code> file created by Local by Flywheel can be safely deleted through FTP or your hosting File Manager.<\/p>\nDatabase access<\/h2>\n
![\"Adminer](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Adminer-600.png\")
Viewing emails<\/h2>\n
![\"MailHog](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/MailHog-600.png\")
<\/div>\nSSH Access and WP-CLI<\/h3>\n
wp<\/code> to see the list of commands, and q<\/code> to return to the command line.<\/p>\n![\"Using](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/WP-CLI-600.png\")
\n
Installing Git<\/h2>\n
Preferences area<\/h2>\n
![\"Preferences](\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/New-Site-Defaults-600.png\")
Community Support<\/h3>\n