How to make bulk changes to wordpress posts

Question

Part way through developing my WP blog, I changed from HTTP to HTTPS. I followed the instructions I found as best as I could, but ended up with a bunch of old permalinks that are all insistent on being HTTP links. I can easily export all the posts, make manual changes in the backup, but when I go to import, I get the distinct sense it is going to load in my changes on top of what is already there, giving me duplicates of everything, not the import onto a clean slate I'm seeking.

I'm bound to need to do some similar bulk changes in future - what are my options for doing them? Are there ways to make bulk find/replace changes within Wordpress, or if not, how can one export, change, and import in a way that cleans out the old before importing the new?

Answer 1

Why not change your site's htaccess file to include this code

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80 
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R=301,L]

...changing to your domain name. This takes all port 80 requests (http) and rewrites them to https.

Then, make sure that the wp_options table has the https URL for your site in both locations.

There are also plugins that will do this for you.