u/Formal-Age6702 — reddlx

I’m trying to migrate a new Elementor design into an existing WordPress site without losing existing posts/content, and I’m running into issues with the Import/Export “Website Template” feature.

Setup:

Old site (target): already has content (posts, etc.) that I need to preserve
I created a local copy of this old site (Local WP) to safely test everything first
New site: redesigned using Elementor
Exporting from new site via Elementor → Import/Export → Website Template
Importing into the local copy of the old site

Problem:
During import I get:
“We couldn’t download the Website Template due to technical difficulties on our part”

What’s confusing is:

The import seems to partially work (some styles/templates appear)
But it fails midway with that error
Re-running import seems to duplicate things (templates, styles, etc.)

Things I’ve already checked:

PHP limits are high enough
ZIP extension enabled
Same Elementor + Elementor Pro versions on both sites

Questions:

Is this feature reliable for merging designs into an existing site, or is it mainly intended for clean installs?
What’s the recommended way to move Elementor designs into an existing site without overwriting its data?

Any insights would really help, I feel like I’m missing something fundamental about how this feature is meant to be used.