Installing WordPress is one of those tasks that can be a little scary the first time. In this post we’ll walk step-by-step through the process to complete a local install of WordPress on your Mac. The process relies on some Mac-specific features, but some of the steps are shared with doing the installation or Windows, or a hosting account.

Having WordPress installed locally is essential for being able to make sensitive development changes without having to worry that you’ll break a live site. If you’re trying to get out of the habit of cowboy coding, this is the first step!

1. Install MAMP if you haven’t yet. If you already have MAMP, open it and click “Start Servers.”
2.  Download WordPress.
   

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3. Unzip your WordPress zip download and drag the folder into your “Sites” folder. (Or whatever folder you set up as the “Document Root” when you installed MAMP. Setting info is located under  “Preferences > Web Server.”
   

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4. In MAMP, click “Open WebStart Page” which will open a MAMP page in your browser.
   

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5. In the MAMP browser window that pops up, select “phpMyAdmin” under the “Tools” drop-down.
   

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6. In phpMyAdmin, you’ll create new database for this WordPress installation. Click the “Databases” tab and create a new database by typing in a name — remember it for later — and clicking “Create”.
   

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7. In your browser, visit http://localhost:80/wordpress. (Assuming your MAMP is serving on port 80, and you put WordPress in the wordpress folder.)
8. Select your language and click “Continue.”
   

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9. We know our database details and already created the database. So we’ll click “Let’s go!” on the next screen.
   

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10. Enter your database details and click “Submit”.
    Database Name: your database from step 6 (mine was "wphp")
User Name: root
Password: root
Database Host: localhost
Table Prefix: wp_
11. Click ‘Run the install”.
    

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12. Enter in the requested information: site title, username, password, and email. Because this is a local install and is only available on your computer, don’t have to worry too much about creating a secure password. Then click “Install.”
    

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13. You did it! Click “Log In”. You’ll be directed to the familiar WordPress login page, which should be located at http://localhost/wordpress/wp-login.php. Make sure you bookmark the URL so you can easily log in in the future.
    

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