How to back up a WordPress site

This guide covers the ways to back up a WordPress site on our hosting: the automatic copies we already keep, a backup you make yourself before a change, and a copy you store away from our servers.

What a WordPress backup needs

A WordPress site is made of two parts, and you need both to bring it back:

• The files. WordPress itself, your theme, plugins and everything in wp-content/uploads, such as images and PDFs. These usually live in public_html.
• The database. Your posts, pages, settings, users, comments and shop orders. WordPress stores these in a MySQL database, not in the files.

A copy of the files without the database gives you an empty site with the right look. A copy of the database without the files loses your images. Always keep the two together, taken at the same time.

Our automatic backups

Every hosting account is backed up by JetBackup every six hours, and the copies are kept off the server your site runs on. This happens without you doing anything, and it includes your WordPress files and databases.

You can restore any of those copies yourself from cPanel. See how to restore a backup with JetBackup.

These backups are a safety net. It’s still worth making your own copy before a risky change, so you know exactly which point you’re going back to.

Make a backup with WP Toolkit

If WP Toolkit on your account shows a backup option, it’s the quickest way to snapshot one site. The layout varies between WP Toolkit versions, so the names may not match exactly.

1. Log in to cPanel and click WP Toolkit.
2. Find your site and open it.
3. Look for Backup / Restore (or a similar link) and click it.
4. Click Back Up and wait for it to finish.

The backup is saved on your hosting account and counts towards your disk space. Delete old ones when you no longer need them. If you can’t see a backup option, use the manual method below.

Make a manual backup

This method works on any account and gives you files you can keep on your own computer.

Download the files

1. In cPanel, open File Manager.
2. Go to public_html, or the folder WordPress is installed in.
3. Select everything in the folder, right click and choose Compress.
4. Pick Zip Archive, give it a name such as site-backup.zip, and click Compress File(s).
5. Right click the new zip file and choose Download.
6. Once it’s on your computer, delete the zip from your hosting so it doesn’t use up space.

You can also download the folder with an FTP program. See how to connect with FileZilla.

Export the database

1. Open wp-config.php in File Manager and note the value of DB_NAME. That’s the database this site uses.
2. In cPanel, open phpMyAdmin.
3. Click the database name in the left column.
4. Click the Export tab, leave the method as Quick and the format as SQL, then click Export (or Go).
5. Save the .sql file next to your zip of files.

For more detail, see how to import and export a database with phpMyAdmin.

If you’d rather have everything in one go, including email, see how to download a full backup of your account.

Back up before updates

Most broken WordPress sites we see broke during an update. Before you update WordPress, your theme, or a large plugin such as WooCommerce, take a fresh backup with WP Toolkit or the manual method. Write down the date and time, so you can pick the right JetBackup copy as a second option.

See how to update WordPress themes and plugins for a safe order to do updates in.

Keep a copy away from our servers

Our backups are stored off-site, but it’s good practice to hold your own copy too. If you ever lose access to your hosting account, or leave us, you’ll still have your site.

• Download a manual backup every month or so, and after big changes.
• Store it somewhere other than your laptop alone, such as a cloud drive or an external disk.
• Keep a few older copies rather than replacing the last one each time. Problems like a malware infection can go unnoticed for weeks.

Backup plugins that send copies to Google Drive, Dropbox or similar are fine to use as well. Set them to run at a quiet time and to keep a limited number of copies, so they don’t fill your disk space.

If it doesn’t work

• The compress step fails or times out. Your uploads folder may be very large. Compress wp-content/uploads separately from the rest, or download it with FTP.
• phpMyAdmin export is very slow. Large shop or log tables can be big. Try again at a quiet time, or ask us in a ticket.
• You’re short of disk space. Remove old zip files and old WP Toolkit backups. See what are resource limits.
• You need to restore and aren’t sure which copy to use. Open a ticket with the date the site last worked properly and we’ll help.

Still stuck? Open a support ticket and we’ll help.