# How I successfully export media with selected (post) content

> If your WordPress posts import fine but media doesn’t, Cloudflare might be blocking it without telling you.

Author: Farhan Munim  
Published: 6 February 2026  
Updated: 22 October 2026  
Tags: Cloudflare, Troubleshooting  
Source: https://farhan.app/blog/how-i-successfully-export-media-with-selected-post-content/

I rebuild my WordPress site fairly often. I like starting clean, but I always want to keep my posts and media.

This time around, I tried to do things properly and use a plugin to export posts *with* their media instead of relying on manual workarounds.

The posts imported fine.  
The media didn’t.

![WordPress import screen listing multiple media files that failed to import](https://cms.farhan.app/api/media/file/export-import-media-fail.png)

If you’ve run into the same issue – especially when Cloudflare is involved – this is what actually fixed it for me.

## The setup

-   Old site hosted behind Cloudflare
-   New WordPress install on a different server
-   Using the [Export media with selected content (by DKZR) plugin](https://wordpress.org/plugins/export-media-with-selected-content/)
-   Posts import successfully
-   Media consistently fails to import

No obvious PHP or WordPress errors. Just missing attachments.

## What *wasn’t* the problem

Before getting anywhere useful, I ruled out the usual suspects:

-   PHP memory limits
-   Upload and download limits
-   Execution timeouts
-   Plugin configuration

None of these made any difference. If you’re seeing posts come across but media fail silently, this is a good sign the issue is elsewhere.

## Testing the real failure point

At this point, the important question was simple:

> Can the new server actually download media files from the old site?

To answer that, I built a small [test media URL plugin](https://github.com/farhanmunim/wordpress/blob/main/test-media-urls.zip) on the **destination site** that attempts to fetch a single media URL from the old site and reports the response code.

The result was consistent: **403 Forbidden**.

![Test Media URL Access tool reporting a failed request with a 403 Forbidden response](https://cms.farhan.app/api/media/file/export-import-media-url-fail.png)

That ruled out WordPress entirely. The request wasn’t even getting through.

## Cloudflare and automated requests

Looking at the response headers made it clear Cloudflare was blocking the request.

I tried:

-   Enabling Development Mode
-   Bypassing cache

Neither helped.

What *did* work was **whitelisting the destination server’s IP address in Cloudflare** on the old site.

![Cloudflare WAF Tools page showing IP Access Rules set to Allow](https://cms.farhan.app/api/media/file/export-import-media-cloudflare-whitelist.png)

As soon as I did that:

-   The test request returned `200 OK`
-   Media files downloaded successfully
-   The import completed as expected

![Test Media URL Access tool showing a successful 200 response after the Cloudflare configuration change](https://cms.farhan.app/api/media/file/export-import-media-url-success.png)

## Why this happens

Media import plugins don’t “copy” files directly. They make HTTP requests from the new site to the old one.

From Cloudflare’s perspective, this can look like:

-   Automated traffic
-   Scraping
-   Or a potential abuse pattern

So the requests get blocked…quietly.

Once the server IP is trusted, the imports work normally.

![WordPress import completion screen confirming posts and media were imported successfully](https://cms.farhan.app/api/media/file/export-import-media-success.png)

## What to check if your media imports keep failing

If you’re stuck with missing media during a WordPress migration:

-   Test media URLs directly from the destination server
-   Check HTTP status codes (403 is a big clue)
-   Review Cloudflare firewall and security settings
-   Temporarily whitelist the destination server IP
-   Retry the import

In my case, the plugin itself was doing exactly what it was supposed to do.