

That wasn’t hard at all, wasn’t it? After three simple steps, now you have a full backup of your WordPress files, and you should keep them safe. Store the folder somewhere on your computer, secure it with cloud hosting, save to an external disk, USB memory stick, DVD… just make sure it’s accessible only to you. Download the entire WordPress folder to your computer.

If you have never connected to your FTP account, you should find all the necessary information in the email from your hosting company, or you can set up a new account from cPanel.

To get started, you will need an FTP access to your site.

You need to take care of all of those data so let’s see how to back them up. You don’t want to lose any of those files, right? What about files located in wp-includes and wp-admin that hold other necessary info for running your site?Īnd that’s just the tip of the iceberg there are some essential files in the root folder like wp-config.php that keep all the details about your site’s configuration. For example, in the wp-content folder, you can find all of your themes, plugins, upgrades, and uploads. Those folders contain valuable data that all combined power up your site. If you open the main WordPress directory, you will find several subfolders like wp-admin, wp-content, and wp-includes (check the screenshot below). To start your manual backup, you will want to download all the custom files from your site. How to backup WordPress files manuallyĪs you might already know, WordPress stores plugins’, themes’ and users’ data both in files and databases. And most of them will require you to pay monthly fees to get every fancy feature they offer. Although they work better than great, most of the backup plugins are premium which means you will have to pay for them. Those plugins will help you copy the files, let you choose between a vast number of options, and you will be even allowed to schedule automatic backups for your site. Both parts are crucial if you want to create a full backup. After that, we’ll show you some of the best plugins for automated WordPress backup. In this article, we are going to show you how to create a manual backup of WordPress files and databases. Don’t get us wrong you will probably be able to restore your site from the hosting company, but if you make money from your WordPress site, you shouldn’t gamble on safety. That’s why you need to take care of your own backups. What if you want a complete backup in the following ten minutes and the support team isn’t answering for hours? What if your hosting company can’t retrieve the data you requested for any reason they come up with? Yes, most of the hosting companies will keep up to their promise and have your backups accessible all the time, but do you really want to entirely rely on someone else when it comes to your site? Still, this is something you can’t completely rely on. Some companies will back up your site on a daily basis, while others will do that every week or month. Most of the hosting companies today promise to do regular backups of your site. Usually, your WordPress hosting provider will get you covered. So, in case you mess up your site, get hacked, or if you simply need an older version of the website for any reason, you can restore it painlessly. When talking about WordPress, backup represents a process of copying WordPress files and databases to a safe location. If you are still not familiar with the term, it is a process of copying or archiving data so that you can quickly restore it if something terrible happens to the original files. Backup is one of those computer-related terms that everyone likes to use even if they don’t completely understand it.
