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Migrating custom fields data from ACF to Meta Box

You can easily move data from ACF to Meta Box with the help of the MB ACF Migration plugin. It will save a lot of time and shorten the process dramatically.

Preparation​

In addition to using the Meta Box, make sure you already have these extensions:

  • Meta Box Builder: A Meta Box premium extension that provides a UI to create and manage custom fields on the backend;
  • MB ACF Migration: This extension is also available in the WordPress repo. Besides, if you use Meta Box AIO or Meta Box Core (in the premium bundle), go to **Meta Box** > **Extensions**, and you will see MB ACF Migration in the list. Just tick to enable it.

Enable the necessary extentions

Besides these above plugins, remember to install all the Meta Box extensions that correspond to the migrated features. For example, if you have fields in a group created by ACF, you have to enable Meta Box Group to migrate the group field data. Or, in ACF, when you set a location to display a field group in taxonomy, you have to activate the MB Term Meta extension in Meta Box.

1. Checking and backing up the data​

Note: Remember to back up your data before migrating to avoid unexpected errors.

I have these custom fields created by ACF for example, including Text, Email, Gallery, and Repeater. The Repeater has three sub-fields: Checkbox, Text, and Gallery.

Example of created fields created by ACF

"The repeater has three sub-fields

Besides, I used conditional logic to display the image field when users choose the Project Type as Web Design. The field group that I created by ACF is shown like this:

The created field group

Make sure that when you migrate custom fields data from ACF to Meta Box, you’ve activated all the necessary plugins, even ACF.

As you can see here in the Plugin menu, the ACF has already been activated.

Activate ACF plugin

2. Installing Meta Box extensions​

As I said before, we need to install extensions that correspond to the features that you used with ACF.

In this case, similar to all the above features in ACF, I will use these extensions of Meta Box:

  • Meta Box Group: to have a group field corresponding to Group + Repeater in ACF
  • MB Conditional Logic: to have the conditional logic feature.

Install extensions

3. Migrating the data​

Go to the Meta Box menu > ACF Migration > Click the Migrate button.

Migrate the data

When the process finishes, it will show a “Done” message.

caution

The AFC menu will automatically disappear when the migration process finishes. This is because Meta Box turned the ACF plugin off automatically to avoid problems caused by registering the same post type.

4. Rechecking the data after migration​

Now, you can see that the fields are displayed the same as when you use ACF. All the features, like group and conditional logic, also work well.

Recheck the data after migration

Here are the fields that are shown in the field edit. All the information, such as field group ID and ID of each field, has remained:

The created fields show in field edit

All the information has remained

And the ACF has already been deactivated.

"ACF has already been deactivated

The migration has been done.