How to set up Joomla! on a local host

To move a copy of your Joomla! website to your local server you will first need to set up your local server. I recommend using XAMPP for this. XAMPP will let you set up an Apache PHP MySQL server. You can download a copy of the program here: https://www.apachefriends.org/download.html

  1. Once you have your local server setup open up your server and navigate to your PHPMyAdmin which should already be installed. Go ahead and set up a database. Since you don’t have to worry about security on your local server you don’t need to set up a password. Your new database will have the username root and will not require a password.
  2. Go to your live Joomla! site and make an Akeeba backup of your entire site and download it to your local computer.
  3. Place the compressed file in the htdocs folder of your localserver. Make sure to get a copy of kickstart.php from https://www.akeebabackup.com/products/akeeba-kickstart.html.
  4. Extract the file and look for kickstart.php among all the other files. In this case that is the only file you need. Upload that to your htdocs folder as well
  5. In your browser navigate ot http://localhost. You should get the Akeeba installer screen. Follow the prompts and connect your database. 
  6. Open up your localhost again and see your site!

If you need more detailed instructions take a look at this post or the documentation provided by Akeeba.

Let me know if you need help!