---
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"@id": "https://helloloam.dev/solutions/yours-to-take-with-you"
"@source": "https://helloloam.dev/data/webpage/yours-to-take-with-you.json"
"@stamp": "2026-10-22T21:53:55+00:00"
about:  # 3
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description: Your site is a folder of plain files. Copy it, and it runs somewhere else — no export, no migration, no permission needed.
headline: Yours to take with you
identifier: yours-to-take-with-you
image:
  "@type": ImageObject
  contentUrl: /assets/images/yours-to-take-with-you.jpg
  caption: A woman on the phone at her kitchen table, smiling as she takes notes beside her laptop.
inLanguage: en
name: Yours to take with you
url: "https://helloloam.dev/solutions/yours-to-take-with-you"
---

# Yours to take with you

## The worry

Many websites belong to their platform more than to their owner. Leaving means an export that loses half, a migration that takes weeks, or starting over. So people stay where they are, not because it is good, but because leaving is hard.

## What happens instead

A loam site is a folder. Your content is plain files, your design is plain files, your images are files. [Copy the folder and you have the site](/principles/portable-by-design) — the same engine shows it on a server, on a laptop or in a test, exactly the same.

## Nothing to unlock

There is no database to export and no account to close. The site's private history is the whole site, [not a backup that needs restoring](/principles/backups-as-a-snapshot). Moving is copying the files and pointing your domain at them. And [a licence brings updates](/licence), never a dependency: without it, the site keeps working.

## In practice

- Move to another host, or to your own server.
- Keep a working copy on your own computer.
- Hand the folder to another developer — the site explains itself to whoever works on it next.

## What it costs

Wherever it goes, the site needs a server that runs PHP the way loam expects. Being able to leave is the point — we would rather you stay because it works.