How to Complete WordPress Backups Manually or With a Plugin
Consider WordPress backups a chance to shield the difficult work you’ve placed into making your site. You won’t be in a difficult situation on the off chance that a crisis, for example, a security breach, malware issue, or human error happens. WordPress backups guarantee that your webpage data is accessible assuming you want to go into recovery mode to make your website ready once more.
The most ideal way to backup a WordPress site changes relies upon who you ask, so finding out about a few backup choices will assist you with choosing the best one for you. Then again, if you need to ensure your site’s safety, you might opt to utilize a few WordPress backups. We’ve illustrated the best WordPress backup strategies, so you have the assets important to go with the most ideal choice for your site.
For what reason are WordPress backups fundamental?
Most hosting companies offer automated website backups, however assuming that the provider crashes, you will not promptly recover access to your site. That is where WordPress backups come into the image. You can have confidence that a hosting provider breakdown doesn’t mean difficulty for your WordPress site while playing out your backups.
Assuming that you’re contemplating whether WordPress backups merit the extra effort, the response is a simple yes. In the case anything turns out badly, you can restore your website quickly so your business won’t pass up revenue opportunities because of the superfluous downtime from the crash.
In addition, hacking is an ongoing threat that businesses face. The Identity Theft Resource Center’s Data Breach Report indicates that in 2021 alone, 1,862 data breaches occurred. That’s a 68% jump from 1,108 in 2020, demonstrating an alarming trend.
Sadly, every industry is vulnerable to hacking, and that implies that regardless of what you do, you should make a solid effort to guarantee access to your site isn’t lost. In the event that your website crashes, your users’ experience will be intruded, and your business could lose revenue or your clients’ trust.
When to Backup Your WordPress Website
It’s impossible to foresee when a situation like this would happen, which is the reason it’s useful to backup your website as oftentimes as could be expected. Nonetheless, manually backing up your WordPress site could be tedious, so every day (or even week by week) backups probably won’t be practical. When to backup your WordPress website relies on the fact that you are so able to take a chance with significant information. If your site is relatively static, maybe a week-after-week backup is adequate. Yet, if you’re running an online shop or a blog, a once-week-by-week backup will probably demonstrate deficiency.
Irrefutably the absolute minimum of when to backup your WordPress website is somewhere around once week after week, yet remember that you most likely will in any case lose important data. Consequently, day to day backups are ideal. While focusing on such incessant WordPress backups is an extra step, think about protecting what you’ve fabricated. Remember that the most effective way to back up a WordPress site is the one that is generally helpful for you. Fortunately, there are many choices.
What is the best way to backup a WordPress Site?
There are several ways to backup a WordPress site. The main three are manual, free, or paid plugins. Each option has its pros and cons, so pay attention to what you value most to make the right choice.
Manual WordPress Backups
In the event that you opt for manual WordPress backups, you’ll need to save a duplicate of your site daily by physically backing up your site. The pros incorporate having a total, complete reinforcement of the latest version of your site. The cons are that this option is tedious and that human mistake is conceivable, so you could coincidentally save a deficient duplicate of your site. (Later in this article, we’ll walk you through the course of manually backing up your site, so you know what to do.)
Paid Plugins for WordPress Backups
There’s a plugin for everything. So obviously, there’s a choice to assist you backup your WordPress site. A paid plugin for WordPress backups may be the right route for organizations hoping to save time. For one’s purposes, this process is more clear and additional time-productive. Dissimilar to free backups that occasionally just protect a negligible part of the content, a paid plugin will in all probability secure your entire site. The con to this is that you’ll need to add the plugin to your above.
Free Plugins for WordPress Backups
Plugins are an easier, faster way to complete WordPress backups. A plugin significantly simplifies the process for businesses that don’t have the time or resources to manually backup their content. However, most free plugins will only capture a portion of your website data. The result could be that your database is only captured and not your media files or themes. If you want to ensure this does not happen, manually back up the site or opt for a paid option.
How to Backup a WordPress Site
Since the most ideal way to backup a WordPress site varies relying upon focusing on culmination or comfort, it depends on you to conclude which choice you need to utilize pushing ahead.
How to Complete WordPress Backups Using a Plugin
While WordPress offers many features, there’s still no magic button you can click to create a backup of your current website. There’s where WordPress plugins come in handy. These software bits add helpful functionality to your website without having to code.
There are many different WordPress plugin options available, but the most downloaded backup plugin is the UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin.
Here are the steps you’ll need to take to complete a WordPress backup with the assistance of a plugin.
1. First, log into your WordPress dashboard.
2. Navigate to the Plugins tab. Then click the Add New button.
3. Search for “UpdraftPlus.” Once it appears in the results, click the Install Now button.
4. Click Activate to automatically redirect to the tab listing all the installed plugins on your site.
5. Now, it’s time to configure the plugin’s settings. You might see a pop-up with a Press here to start button! If you don’t, click the Settings link.
6. If you’d like to perform a backup immediately, click the Backup Now button.
7. If you’d like to schedule auto backups, you can set your backup schedule under the Settings tab.
8. Next up, choose where to save your backups by selecting a remote storage provider. For the sake of this demo, we’ll choose Dropbox.
9. Once you make your selection, a new section will appear with a link to authenticate your account with the provider after you save your settings. No action is necessary now.
10. Select which files you want to include in your backups.
11. Save your settings by clicking the Save Changes button.
12. Once you click Save Changes, a pop-up window will appear, asking you to verify your account with whichever remote provider you selected.
13. To complete the process, click on the link. It will automatically open a new window asking you to fill in your account information.
14. Grant UpdraftPlus.com access to your remote provider and click Complete Setup.
15. You’ll then be redirected to your WordPress dashboard and see a success message for authenticating your account.
While this successfully sets up the UpdraftPlus plugin for WordPress backups, WordPress’s official documentation notes that even with the assistance of a backup plugin, a manual backup every once in a while is essential.
If you’re looking for a step-by-step video tutorial, this one can help.
How to Complete WordPress Backups Manually Using cPanel
- Login to your cPanel.
- Under Files, click File Manager.
- On the left panel, find the public_html folder and expand the folder by clicking on the + symbol. Select the folder with your website’s name.
- Right-click your website’s folder and select Compress.
- Select Zip Archive and click Compress File(s).
- After the compression is complete, select the zip file and click Download on the top menu bar.
- Now, place your backup in a secure location on your hard drive.
- Your manual backup is complete! Repeat this process as frequently as necessary
Most hosting providers offer cPanel to manage your website. Its intuitive interface makes it easy to backup your files. If you don’t have a cPanel, learn how to backup your website with phpMyAdmin here.
1. Log into your cPanel. (Go to www.yourdomain.com/cpanel.)
2. Under Files, click File Manager.
3. On the left panel, find the public_html folder and expand the folder by clicking on the + symbol. Select the folder with your website’s name.
4. Right-click your website’s folder and select Compress. (Compressing the files decreases the amount of time it will take to save the backup.)
5. Select Zip Archive and click Compress File (s).
6. After the compression is complete, select the zip file and click Download on the top menu bar.
7. Now, place your backup in a secure location on your hard drive.
Next Steps for Manual WordPress Backups
Whenever you’ve finished a manual WordPress backup, you can find extra ways to ensure that your site is really secure. Consider these as preventive measures to reduce the probability of utilizing one of your backups to make your site ready once more.
Consider multiple WordPress backup options.
The saying ‘the more, the merrier’ applies to WordPress backups. Some people opt to have a paid plugin and a manual backup available. If anything were to happen, your site would be accessible on one or the other.
Update your WordPress backups when significant updates occur — or at least once monthly.
Ideally, you’ll update your WordPress backups daily. Once weekly could also work depending on how frequently your site is updated. However, if that’s not possible due to financial or time constraints, be sure to backup your site once a month or when significant updates occur.
Encrypt your data.
If you’re concerned about potential hackers violating your backup, ensure it’s encoded into a random message and features password protection. Encryption software will help you successfully do this.
Protect your backup by keeping it in multiple secure locations.
It’s best practice to keep multiple copies of your backup — and ideally, this will include cloud and local storage. Some options include Google Drive, Dropbox, or a hard drive.
Make sure your backup works.
Imagine needing a backup file to bring your website back to life, and when you do, the backup isn’t successful. Luckily, combating this is simple. Just test your backup to ensure it functions properly and has everything you need.
WordPress Backups Help Secure Your Content
Now that you know how to back up a WordPress site, it’s time to put it into practice. WordPress backups will help ensure your content is never out of reach and if your hosting provider crashes, you won’t have to start from scratch.
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