Where does content created in Elementor “live”?

  • I promise I have looked, but haven’t found an answer. Elementor is dazzling. Your tutorials on how to use it (and the widgets) are top notch. (I have watched them all!) I just can’t wrap my head around were content created in Elementor WYSIWYG widgets lives inside of the WordPress architecture. What I’m getting at of course is – what happens if one day I (or a client) decide to change course and discontinue using Elementor but wish to keep existing content? It seems a completely different issue than simply changing to a different WordPress theme. Uncertainty around this question is the primary thing keeping me from jumping in. Thanks for either an answer or a pointer to an existing document I have been unable to locate.
    Steve

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  • @snelson –

    The content is stored in the database in the _posts table. Elementor is one of the very few page builders that does not hold your content “hostage”. If/when you deactivate or delete the plugin for whatever reason, your content will still be there in the WP Editor, albeit without any of the formatting or styling that was provided by Elementor. It should also be noted, unlike a lot of page builders, Elementor does not leave behind any shortcodes.

    One of the very best ways to try out Elementor (along with any other WP theme/plugin) is set up a local server on your computer where you can test, prod and poke to your hearts content without worrying about breaking anything; that is what I have always done ??

    Cheers!
    Lyle

    Thread Starter SNelson

    (@snelson)

    Thanks, Lyle. I have indeed set up a local server for testing, but haven’t gotten too far in my explorations. An enormous amount of reconstruction would be required if Elementor were to be disabled but it’s reassuring to know that the raw content itself will be preserved. I appreciate your answer.
    Steve

    … just do one thing and you’ll see whats happening:
    set up another site on local, install elementor, design a page and then simply delete (or deactivate) the elementor plugin.
    all your content wil stay within the page but (of course) without any styling you made in EL.
    and if only deactivated, EL should find and grab its settings and contend styling again from database upon reactivaton.

    of course you will have to style all of your content again when changing the builder – but thats the ‘issue’ with every page builder ??
    and as WP Learn Basics already claimed: EL will leave the content without any thrash of (useless) shortcodes – and thats a REAL advantage if you ever want to change page builders!
    believe me: i’ve done this with visual composer lately and its absolutely no fun to clean up all those left behind shortcodes before building up a page again from scratch. HUGHE amount of work!

    so you better use something like elementor or code completely by hand – and even with the latter youre not shure if e.g. a new theme accepts all of your work.

    in the end EL is no fault to choose ??

    (in fact the ‘shortcode-problem’ with other builders is exactly the reason i dont use them anymore for new projects…)

    pingram

    (@pingram3541)

    Yes but where is the actual builder data stored?

    I checked _posts table and all I see are Elementor templates saved as a post type , everything else is standard wp stuff such as revisions and such.

    If you really want to see where the data is you have to check the _postmeta table and search for the post_id of that page/post in questions and find the key matching _elementor_data

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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