Here are three scenarios where duplicating your live website on the localhost can be helpful:

1. Installing a New Theme: If you install a new theme on your live website, it might make it look lopsided or even break it. To avoid this, you can back up your website and restore it on the localhost to create a duplicate website. Then, you can install the new theme and redesign your website accordingly. Once you finish, you can follow our videos on how to make the website live that you designed on the localhost.
2. Changing PHP Version: If your hosting provider uses an outdated and security-vulnerable version of PHP, changing it on the live website might break it. To avoid this, you can duplicate your website on the localhost and change the PHP version there. This way, you can see how your website reacts, and if it works well, you can make the same changes to your live website. If there are issues, you can troubleshoot the website on the localhost to find out if any plugins or themes are incompatible with the PHP version.
3. WordPress Upgrades: Sometimes WordPress, plugins, and themes become outdated. Updating them directly on the live website might break it, so duplicating your live website on the localhost allows you to implement incremental updates. If updating WordPress on the localhost does not break your website, it is likely to work on the live website too. Similarly, if an update to a plugin does not break the website on the localhost, it is unlikely to break it on the live website.