Technical requirements
Export file formats, media limits, batching thresholds and recommended PHP settings for large migrations.
Details that matter once you are moving real data: file formats, size limits and the server settings worth checking before a large migration. The dry run checks most of these for you.
Export files
| Tab | File |
|---|---|
| Modules, Menus, Users | .json |
| Articles, Contacts | .zip with a data.json and a media/ folder holding the image files |
| Categories only (Articles or Contacts tab) | .json |
The import windows for Articles and Contacts also accept a plain .json file, including files made with JoomShift's predecessor, Easy Import/Export.
Media files
JPG · JPEG · PNG · GIF · WebP · SVG · BMP · ICO — up to 10 MB per file.
- Media is only exported from and imported into the site's image folder (
imagesby default, as set in the Media component). - SVG files that contain scripts or embedded content are not imported.
- Anything else is skipped with a warning rather than written to disk.
Automatic export batching
Any Export All scope with more than 500 items is split into batches — for example "Batch 1 of 3 (items 1–500)" — each downloaded as its own file, so one request never has to hold an entire site in memory. Import the batches in order; a menu item whose parent was in an earlier batch is attached to it.
Recommended PHP settings for large migrations
These are not hard requirements — batching keeps JoomShift working on modest shared hosting — but they give comfortable headroom.
| Setting | Suggested minimum | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
upload_max_filesize |
Larger than your biggest export file | Caps the file size the import window can accept |
post_max_size |
Slightly above upload_max_filesize |
The upload is dropped if the file is larger |
memory_limit |
256M or higher | Headroom for large, media-heavy article and contact files |
max_execution_time |
60s or higher | Gives a large batch time to finish on slow storage |
If an upload is larger than the server allows, JoomShift says so and shows the current limits.