WordPress Tutorial – How to Backup WordPress

This might happens to anyone, if you don’t know how to configure your WordPress blog. If you don’t know how to setup WordPress, hire me. I would setup your WordPress blog for free without any cost.  If you hire any developer or tell your hosting to migrate from one to another host, they would charge you minimum $100 USD. However I would get that done for free. You can use free WordPress installation service to get this offer. Here we would discuss about how you can take backup of your WordPress blog.  It is advised that you should take backup of your WordPress site every-week or monthly basis. So that you would be able to recover if any changes or problem persist on your blog. Well, here is detailed WordPress Tutorial to backup WordPress blog.

What WordPress Blog Consist of :

Well, if you think to backup all folders, it would not work because WordPress consist of files and database. If configured properly then only you would be able to use it. This information would help you if you are looking for, what should I backup for complete migration of my blog to another server.

1. Backup WordPress Files & Folders : You would be able to view all files available on your WordPress hosting from the file manager. It might consists of web folders with application files, WordPress theme/s files, plugins files and your uploaded media files. Typically all these files are found in the root of your website.

2. Backup WordPress MySQL Database : This is important thing consisting of your WordPress blog setting with content, user information, passwords and privileges, website settings, theme settings, WordPress plugins settings etc are stored.

Backup WordPress Blog Manually : 

You can log in to your WordPress blog, go to export option from setting menu. It would ask you which things you want to take backup of. If you want to take backup of the entire site, choose all content and then press the export button.

Export WordPress Blog from WordPress Dashboard
Export WordPress Blog from WordPress Dashboard

When you click export button, WordPress will create an XML file for you to save to your computer. This format, which we call WordPress eXtended RSS or WXR, will contain your posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags. Once you’ve your backup saved on your computer, you would be able to import that backup on another WordPress site using import features.

Backup WordPress From your Hosting cPanel :

If you are manually backing up your entire WordPress blog, you should backup WordPress Files & Folders along with MySQL Database.

Backup File Manager Using WordPress cPanel
Backup File Manager Using WordPress cPanel

Backing up WordPress themes, plugins and uploads : You would be able to find themes, plugins and uploads & other important files from your file manager.These all folders & files you would find in your public_html directory of your file manager. For that, you can go to your file manager and there open public_html folder. Archive all folders from there and make single compressed archive for easy backup. Once compressed archive created, download that backup folder to your computer.

Backup WordPress database using phpMyAdmin :  This is the place from where you would get backup of your MySQL Database. phpMyAdmin is a MySQL Server admin web based tool. You can access it directly from your WordPress Hosting cPanel account.

Backup WordPress database using phpMyAdmin
Backup WordPress database using phpMyAdmin

You would have to enter your phpMyAdmin username and password. Well, if you don’t know your phpMyAdmin user name and password, you would get it from wp-config.php file located in the root of your WordPress.

Backup MySQL Database from WordPress phpMyAdmin
Backup MySQL Database from WordPress phpMyAdmin

Once you logged in, you would notice several databases, choose appropriate database of your WordPress blog and click on export.Once you export it on your computer, it’s extension would be databasename.sql .

You would require this both file ( MySQL database & Files/Folders from public_html) to restore the it on your new hosting cPanel. You would also have to configure your database correctly in order to run your new WordPress installation smoothly.

Backup WordPress Site using Plugins :

WordPress Smart Backup : Smart Backup is a complete WordPress solution for database backup and restore operations. You can create automatic backups of your complete WordPress installation, files only, or database only.

WordPress Smart Backup - WordPress Backup Plugins
WordPress Smart Backup – WordPress Backup Plugins

You would also be able to restore backups with one click.  Options for the scheduler include timeouts (for tight PHP servers), backup types (files, .sql, complete) and notification emails for backup success or failure.  The backup manager allows for easy restoring by type, date or ZIP archive.

Free WordPress Backup Plugins from WordPress Plugins Directory :

There are also few best WordPress Plugins available on official WordPress plugin directory. All of these backup plugins are free of cost if you don’t wish to spending money on premium plugins. However if you use premium plugins(paid wordpress plugins), you could see improvement results in performance.

WP Migrate DB :  This plugins would exports your WordPress database, Helps you to find & replace on URLs and file paths, then allows you to save it to your computer.

WordPress Move :  Enables you to back up your installation to restore to at any time, change the domain name in use and migrate your installation to another server.

WP Time Machine :  Creates an archive of all your WordPress Data & Files and then stores them on Dropbox, Amazon’s S3, or your FTP host.

WordPress backup to Dropbox : Helps you to backup your WordPress blog to directly on your dropbox account.

Drop in Dropbox :  Upload single files or entire directories with subdirectories to your Dropbox account.

WordPress Duplicator :  Duplicate, clone, backup, move and transfer an entire site from one location to another.

PressBackup : Easily backup your WordPress site and use our cloud storage service for free! or choose to save backups on DropBox, Amazon S3, or a server folder.

BackWPup Free – WordPress Backup Plugin : Schedule complete automatic backups of your WordPress installation. Decide which content will be stored (Dropbox, S3…).

BackUpWordPress : Simple automated back ups of your WordPress powered website.

WordPress SQL Backup : WP Backup is a plugin that allows you to easily preform an sql backup and and create a tar and gzipped backup of your /wp-content/ directory from within your dashboard. The plugin is very secure and only allows administrators to preform a backup.

WP-DB-Backup : On-demand backup of your WordPress database.

XCloner – Backup and Restore : XCloner is a full backup and restore plugin for WordPress, it will backup and restore both files and database. www.xcloner.com

Online Backup for WordPress : Online Backup for WordPress allows you to easily backup your WordPress site with encryption locally, to email, or free 100 MB secure online storage.

WordPress EZ Backup : Backup & Archive your site & Database all from this easy to use plugin. Many robust features included.

myRepono WordPress Backup Plugin : Automate your WordPress, website & database backups using the myRepono remote website backup service.

Overview : The backup solution completely depending on the webmaster’s decision.However if you still think you can not backup, restore or migrate your WordPress blog from one to another server. Feel free to share your comments below. We would guide you for the same.