The MyBB software has a converter designed to migrate the content from other supported forum software to MyBB. Currently the scripts that can be migrated to MyBB are:

  • Invision Power Board 2.1, 2.2, or 2.3
  • MyBB 1.4 (Merge multiple copies of MyBB in to one)
  • SMF 1.1
  • XMB 1.9
  • phpBB 2
  • phpBB 3
  • punBB 1.2
  • vBulletin 3.6 or 3.7

The migration procedure is not hard to accomplish still there are several requirements:

  • You need to have MyBB already installed under your account.
  • The forum that you are migrating should be under the same account as your MyBB installation.
  • You need specific details about the forum you are migrating from (in all cases you need access to the old forum database, thus you will need the database username and password and the database name itself).
  • You need to download the convert module for MyBB and upload it under the MyBB installation

It is highly recommended to always back up both forums (the MyBB and the one you are migrating) prior to initiating the migration. This way you will ensure you can revert your forums back to a working state in case anything goes wrong.

  • Download locally the merge system from the MyBB official web site: http://mybboard.net/downloads/merge-system
  • Extract it locally on your computer.
  • You will get a directory ‘convert’. This is what you will need to upload directly under the MyBB installation folder. The whole ‘convert’ directory should be uploaded.
  • Once ready, you should access the convert folder you have just uploaded. The URL will look like this: http://sgmybb.com/convert. This will start the merge system.
  • The first step is choosing the software you would like converted to MyBB from the list of supported applications.

At this point the module conversion page will load.

  • You will see several modules that can be run.
  • Note that most of the modules will have dependencies. This means that you will need to run one or more of the other modules prior to proceeding with their migration. When a module is successfully ran it will be checked with a green tick and crossed our in the dependencies for other modules.
  • Please note that certain modules might take more time to run. This depends on the size of your previous forum.
  • If you are experiencing troubles running a certain step you can try lowering the number of queries that should be executed simultaneously. This should help.
  • When all modules are successfully run, you will be redirected to a new page where you will be provided with a report for the conversion steps. It can be downloaded in plain text or HTML format.
  • It is highly recommended that you run the Rebuild and Recount tools via the admin CP for MyBB once the migration is over.
  • Also you should remove the convert directory if you are not planning to convert any other forums and merge them in your MyBB installation.