How to Backup WordPress Site

If you are worried about your WordPress website and want to keep multiple backups of your website, then this article is for you . In this WordPress tutorial for beginners we are going to tell you How to Backup WordPress Site.

Let’s suppose everyday you are working on your website and keeps making changes to it, one day it gets stops. What happens when your website suddenly stops working or crashed. Let me ask a question How you will recover your site content again? The answer is Backup. If you have kept a backup of your website then you just have to restore that backup and your site will be working again. Your site will be looking exactly same as it was when taking backup.

What is Backup?

Backup means saving a copy of computer data or a copy of a website and keeping it safe in a local storage or cloud storage.

How to Take Backup of Your WordPress Website

You can backup your WordPress website with plugin or without plugin. In this article we will tell you how to backup WordPress website with plugin.

How to backup WordPress site with plugin.

So in order to take backup of your WordPress website with plugin you need to install a plugin in WordPress named Updraft.

Step 1. Installing Updraft backup plugin.

First go to WordPress dashboard, go to ‘Plugins’ and click on ‘Add new’.
Search for plugin by typing Updraft.
You will see the following plugin which will help you to backup your WordPress website.

Install this plugin and then activate it.
Now click on “Plugins” then “Installed Plugins” in your WordPress dashboard, scroll to Updraft plugin and click on “Settings”, it will take you to Updraft dashboard page in WordPress.

So now you have successfully installed the backup plugin in your WordPress. Now let’s see how to take backup from this plugin.

How to take backup with the help of Updraft plugin?

With the help of Updraft plugin you can take backup your site manually when you need it, or you can setup an automatic backup for your site. In automatic backup, Updraft plugin will fired an automatic backup on schedule time. So whenever your site goes at risk you will have a backup of it every time. We have described both method in this article.

How to backup WordPress site manually with plugin.

To take backup with updraft, click on “Backup/Restore” tab in Updraft dashboard and then on ‘Backup Now’ button.

Make sure upper two ticks are selected then click on “Backup Now”.

Now your backup will start downloading. It will take some time according to your internet connection, the size of your website and the size of backup file.

That’s it, you have now taken the backup., If you scroll down you will see that your backup is listed which you have just took.

How to setup automatic backup in WordPress site with Updraft plugin

You can’t take backup of your site every time when you make changes to it, it may be very frustrated to you. Why not to set up an automatic backup schedule to website which will take a backup of your website at regular interval so that your site will always be backed up every time when you make changes to it even if you are forgot to take a backup of your site.

Steps to set automatic backup in WordPress site with Updraft plugin.

So to setup an automatic backup to your site go to Updraft dashboard in your WordPress and click on “Settings” tab.
Now set time interval to schedule your automatic files backup, choose ‘weekly’ in “Files backup schedule” and choose how much scheduled backups you want to retain. We recommend you to set it to 4.
Set time interval to schedule your automatic database backup, choose ‘weekly’ in “Database backup schedule” and choose how much scheduled backups you want to retain. We recommend you to set it to 4. You can set all of these settings according to your need also.

You need to choose your remote storage where you want to store these backups. Updraft provides many remote storage services and cloud storage services which you can choose to store your backups.
Choose your remote storage service. I recommend you choose Google Drive as your remote storage.
Click Google Drive, scroll down and click on ‘Save Changes’.
As you will click on ‘Save changes’ you will see a notice of remote storage authentication which will ask you to link Google Drive account with updraft.
Follow the link provided in the pop up notice it will take you to your google account.

Choose your Google account.
Now click on Allow in your Google account. It will give the permission to Updraft to make changes in your Google Drive.

Now you will see the following page of updraft plugin, click on ‘Complete Setup’ to complete your authentication process. Now all your backups will be stored remotely in Google Drive account. Updraft will keep your backups according to your chosen time interval only and the outdated backup will also be deleted automatically. This means you don’t have to be worry about your Google Drive storage limit.

You have completed your automatic backup setup for your WordPress website. From now Updraft will take automatic backup on schedule time interval. The Google Drive icon shows that the backup is also stored in Google Drive account.

How to use backup to restore WordPress site when it stops working or got crashed.

You can use backup to restore your site in two conditions. These two conditions are:-

Let’s suppose by mistake you have deleted something on your website or you have made some changes to it and you want the earlier version of your site. or
Your site stops working or it got crashed and you are unable to log in to your WordPress dashboard.

Condition 1

Using backup to restore WordPress site When it stops working.

So let’s take first condition, suppose you changed something on your website or deleted something and you want to bring back it. You can use your backup to bring back the previous version of your site. The steps for this are as follows.

Click on “Plugins” then “Installed Plugins” in your WordPress dashboard, scroll to Updraft plugin and click on “Settings”, it will take you to Updraft dashboard page in WordPress.

Now click on “Backup/Restore” and scroll down, you will see the list of your most recent backups.

Choose your backups and click on ‘Restore’. Now you will see a page which will ask you to choose files which you want to restore. Select all the tics and click on ‘Next’.

Updraft will now download all the necessary file which are needed to restore the backup. After finishing the download click on ‘Restore’.
Now Updraft will start restoring backup on your site. It will download all the files one by one. After finishing restoration you need to click on “Return to Updraft Configuration”.

That’s all you have successfully restored your website. Now let’s see the second condition.

Condition 2

Using backup to restore WordPress site when it got crashed.

Let’s take second condition, suppose your website has been hacked or crashed completely and not able to login into your WordPress dashboard area. You can use your backup to bring back your crashed site. The steps for this are as follows.

In order to restore your crashed website you need to go to your hosting provider and delete your WordPress and reinstall it. I am showing how to delete and reinstall the WordPress in Hostinger. WordPress installation process is same in all hosting provider so don’t worry.

How to delete and reinstall the WordPress in Hostinger

Scroll down till Website section and you need to click on “Auto Installer” tab.

Now you need to to delete your older WordPress and reinstall it. Choose your website and delete your old WordPress by clicking on three dots and delete option.

Hostinger will delete your WordPress, now you need to reinstall it. To reinstall the WordPress under Website section again click on “Auto Installer” and choose WordPress.
Fill all the required details like your domain name, protocol (https/http), Administrator Username, Administrator Password, administrator Email address, and Website Title etc. Click on “Install” after mandatory details. after few seconds installation will finish and you will see a new WordPress CMS has been installed on your website.

Refresh your webpage and under WordPress section, click on “dashboard” then “Edit Website”. Now you will be redirected to WordPress admin area.
This will be your default ‘Hello world’ website, to restore your old website with all the content in it you need to install the Updraft plugin again and repeat all the steps which you have used to set automatic backup in Updraft.
To link Google Drive use the same account Which you have used earlier.
After setting up automatic backup and linking the Google Drive account, click on “Rescan remote storage”. After this Updraft will listed all the backup which has been taken earlier, choose your backup and click on ‘Restore’.

So this is how you can take the backup of your site by using Updraft plugin and use it when you need it. these are free services of Updraft plugin, if you want more features from it you can use the premium plans of it. If you have any problem then ask me by comment.

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