Working locally on your website is a very common practice among WordPress developers. It is quite easy to set up and optimizes the development process. For those less knowledgeable about WordPress, it can be a great tool to explore and build on your existing knowledge. Fortunately, there are several free web development tools that can be used. In this article, we will consider one called MAMP.
MAMP was originally designed for the Macintosh (i.e. macOS), but has since been expanded to Windows while keeping its name. MAMP stands for Macintosh, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Apache is an open source web server, MySQL is an open source relational database management system, and PHP is a server-side scripting language on which WordPress is built. Therefore, as you will soon learn, using MAMP can be beneficial for a large number of WordPress users. We’ll go into more detail in the next section. Next, we’ll show you the steps to take to install both MAMP and WordPress in it:
Why Should You Install WordPress Natively on Mac Using MAMP?
There are many reasons why it is beneficial to have a local WordPress installation using MAMP. The first and most common is to want a secure environment to test updates before applying them to a live site. It is important to thoroughly test any code changes you have made or not made beforehand, as mistakes can be quite costly, meaning your website may break. On the same note, a local install can also act as a kind of backup for your actual site. Additionally, running locally is faster as it eliminates server issues as well as internet accessibility and connectivity issues. Finally, local installations have a lower risk of acquiring malware or being hacked.
How to Install WordPress Natively on Mac Using MAMP
Now that we’ve covered the many advantages of having a local WordPress installation using MAMP, we’ll move on to the how-to part of the article. We have divided the installation process into four parts and explained each one carefully and in detail. Step-by-step explanations are accompanied by screenshots so you can easily follow along.
The first step is to download the MAMP software and install it on your computer. To do this, simply go to: MAMP Information Click on the website and Download for free connection.
Once the download is finished, you will need to double click the downloaded file to start the installation. Next, just follow the on-screen instructions. For the most part, you’ll just have to click Continue Press the button and accept the license agreement.
When you come to the last window, click Close Button to complete MAMP installation on your device.
Please note that the download package includes MAMP and MAMP Pro (paid version), so both will be installed on your computer. So when you continue to start MAMP after installation, you need to make sure you open and use the free version.
You can do this by going Applications > MAMP folder on your computer.
After opening the MAMP folder, find the elephant icon in and click To start the MAMP application.
*Bonus tip
Before continuing further, we would like to point out that A few changes you can make to the MAMP settings now so that working in MAMP will be easier for you in the long run.. The first of these changes is Changing the Apache port. Open the Preferences menu under MAMP and then click the ports tab.
Type 80 in the Apache port field and then click OK to save the change.. Alternatively, you can press the button with . Set web and MySQL ports to 80 and 3306 To change the Apache port along with the MySQL port.
By changing the Apache port to 80 you will be able to access your local websites using: http://localhost as a link instead http://localhost:8888. But this also means: Every time you start MAMP servers, you will need to provide the administrator password for your device..
Another thing you can change to make the user experience better is to choose the root directory for your documents. This is where your local websites will be stored. The default location of MAMP is: /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/ Folder. However, you can easily change this if you want. Go to the preferences menu, Web Server taband then choose A folder that you can easily access to install MAMP. This will help you in the long run because you will keep all your site files inside MAMP’s htdocs subdirectory. Ideally, you should store each of your websites in a new folder in this subdirectory..
On our side, we will keep the default file path.
After setting these options to suit your preferences, you can continue installing WordPress locally by starting the server. Click Start Servers Press the button in the MAMP application window. If you previously changed the Apache Port to 80, you will be prompted to enter your computer’s administrator password.
Now that MAMP is installed and running, we need to add WordPress to the localhost website. Download the latest version of WordPress from official website by clicking Download WordPress button in the middle of the screen. At the time of this writing the latest version was 5.3.2, so yours may be different.
What to do after the download is complete Go to the folder where you installed MAMP and access the htdocs subfolder inside—in our case we used the default path /Applications/MAMP/htdocs/. If this is different for you, navigate to the folder you specified earlier for MAMP and then htdocs subfolder. you belong here create a new folder for your site. As mentioned earlier, you should store each of your website files in a new folder within the htdocs directory. The name of this folder will be part of the URL used to access your site. For example, if you name the folder my siteYou will access your site by going to http://localhost/mysite in your preferred browser.
After creating the folder, open it and extract the contents of the WordPress installation the file you downloaded earlier.
Open your browser and navigate with http://localhost/MAMP/.
Click VEHICLES Click the tab, then PHPMYADMIN option from the drop-down menu.
phpMyAdmin is a web-based application for administration and administration of MySQL databases. What to do when you open click databases and then create a new database. You can give this database any name you want, but make sure you remember the name because you will need it in the next step. We will name our database mydb. In addition to these, make sure you choose blend from the drop-down menu before clicking the create button.
That’s it—now you have a database for your site.
After creating the database, open your browserand go to: http://localhost/mysite/ To start the WordPress installation. the first thing you should do choose language you will be using.
On the next screen, WordPress will list the information you need to complete the installation. Click Let’s go button.
Next, you will be asked to enter your WordPress database information. you should do it here Enter the following information in full
You can leave the last two fields as they are.
Once you click To send You will be able to see a notification that the first episode is finished. by clicking on most Run the setup button famous will begin five-minute WordPress installation process.
When the installation is complete, you will need to fill Information required formand click most Install WordPress button below. You do not need to tick the checkbox for deter search engines from indexing this site Search engines cannot index a site made in a local environment.
A Success after installing WordPress! message will appear. Click sign in button to advance to login page.
you need now enter username and password previously selected and press the Login button once more.
After successfully logging in, you should see the dashboard panel completing the setup process.
You can now continue working on your site using a local environment. Please when you want to work on your site, MAMP must be running for localhost to work.
final thoughts
As you can see, installing WordPress locally on Mac using MAMP requires only a few steps and can be completed in no time. Using MAMP for WordPress allows you to work on your site in a secure and controlled environment. You’ll be able to hone your WordPress skills, develop sites for clients, test tough changes, and much more. Overall, this is an invaluable asset for quickly creating stunning websites and maintaining the functionality of existing websites. So, whatever you aim to do with your website and MAMP, we hope you found this tutorial helpful and will use it in the future.
