About this plugin
If you sell WordPress themes or plugins, buyers want to try before they buy. TryDemoWP gives every visitor their own disposable sandbox copy of your site that destroys itself when the timer runs out.
This plugin removes the manual step. Instead of exporting a backup, downloading it, and uploading it to TryDemoWP, you connect this site once and press a button.
What it does
- Takes a snapshot of this site — wp-content plus a database dump — and keeps it on your own server.
- Shows you exactly what goes in — every plugin, theme, uploads folder and database table — and leaves customer data, orders and form entries out unless you choose otherwise.
- Holds several snapshots, so you can go back to how the demo looked last week without re-exporting anything.
- Publishes any snapshot as your live demo, resumably, so a dropped connection continues where it left off.
- Lets you download a snapshot and upload it in the TryDemoWP dashboard instead, which is the way through if your host blocks the direct push.
- Reports back when your demo is live.
About the snapshot file
tdw file can only be opened by TryDemoWP — not by you, and not by any other tool. Anyone who has the file can build a demo from it in their own TryDemoWP account, so treat it like a copy of your site.
What it deliberately leaves out
This is an export built for demos, not a backup. To keep the archive small enough to upload, it skips:
- Cache directories and other backup plugins’ folders (which are often gigabytes of your own backups).
- Log files, archives, and build junk such as node_modules and.git.
- Post revisions, transients, and spam or trashed comments.
- Runtime scratch tables such as Action Scheduler and WooCommerce sessions — the table structure is kept so plugins still work, only the rows are dropped.
php is never included, so database credentials and security salts never leave your server. Your live site is only ever read, never modified.
External service
This plugin sends data to TryDemoWP, a third-party service, and requires an account there.
- Service: TryDemoWP
- Data sent: your wp-content directory and a filtered database dump, your site’s home URL, and the plugin version, all authenticated with a connect token you generate in your TryDemoWP dashboard.
- Terms of service: trydemowp.com/terms
- Privacy policy: trydemowp.com/privacy
- Security & data retention: trydemowp.com/security
Nothing is transmitted until you connect a token and choose to make a snapshot live. Taking a snapshot never leaves your server.