Working with XAMPP and and phpMyAdmin makes dealing with databases more visual, but importing large db dumb files can fail/take a long time.

Importing from the command line is faster and more stable.

Use the XAMPP mysql, if there is not a global mysql

cd /Applications/XAMPP/xamppfiles/bin 

Import on Local Server

mysql -u username -p db_name < ~/path/to/db/file.sql

Import with specified Server

mysql -u username -p -h hostname db_name  < ~/path/to/db/file.sql

Checking Status of MySQL Server

mysqladmin -u username -p -h hostname status

• -p asks for the password on execution
• Importing a ca. 300MB file takes ca. 5 seconds.
• Make sure the DB "db_name" already exists.

Troubleshooting

I exported all the DB from one installatino as one, big localhost.sql and then tried to import it in another one. That creates the following error:

ERROR 2006 (HY000) at line 127571: MySQL server has gone away

Some DBs have been imported, but not all.

Workaround: Export/Import DBs individually.

IMPORTANT: No space between -p and 'password'

mysqldump -u'username' -p'password' --all-databases > /path/all.sql

Date in file name:

mysqldump -u'username' -p'password' --all-databases > 
/path/all_`date +\%Y\%m\%d_\%H\%M\%s`.sql