Every WordPress site should have backups as its first line of protection. In addition to having automated backups, you should also have a simple method for restoring the backup if necessary.
Finding a solution to protect your WordPress site from problems like incorrect updates, hacking, user error, and server crashes should be of the utmost significance, regardless of the size of your site. The moment has come to set up regular website backups if you haven’t already.
In this article, we’ll illustrate how to back up a WordPress site using the free version of our user-friendly backup plugin UpdraftPlus.
What is Backup?
A “backup” is a copy of your website’s files and data in case the originals are lost or damaged. Your WordPress backup can back up everything on your site, including all of your pages, posts, comments, database entries, plugins, themes, and uploads (such as images), or you can pick and choose what to back up.
Why do WordPress Sites Require a Backup?
A website backup is essential and can protect you from a lot of difficulties if something goes wrong with your website. Every website on the internet is vulnerable to security risks and data loss.
The following are some typical scenarios as a website owner when you might lose your data:
- Hackers may damage your data if they gain access to your website
- Your information may go missing from your hosting provider
- Your host keeps the authority to eliminate all of your data and terminate your account
There are numerous other circumstances in which you can lose your WordPress website, WordPress themes, and all the important information accumulated over the years. Regularly backing up your website is the best protection against these assaults.
There is no built-in backup system for WordPress. But, you can automatically back up and restore your WordPress site using several excellent plugins.
How Does Website Backup Function?
The website’s information is downloaded to a separate location when you create a backup copy of the website.
This might be:
- The computer
- A portable hard drive
- The server of your web host
- Cloud storage
Just keeping one copy of the website as a backup is insufficient. For instance, yesterday’s backup won’t help you if a virus has been silently obliterating the website in the background without your knowledge.
How to Backup WordPress Sites with UpdraftPlus?
Your website may be quickly and easily backed up with a WordPress backup plugin. The most dependable WordPress backup in WordPress, UpdraftPlus is straightforward to set up.
Install the UpdraftPlus Plugin
Installing and activating the free UpdraftPlus plugin is the first thing you need to do.
Kindly follow these steps to install UpdraftPlus for free:
- Go to Plugins > Add New on your WordPress dashboard.
- In the search box, type UpdraftPlus.
- Choose Install Now after locating the UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin, and then Activate.
Creating WordPress Backup with UpdraftPlus
After installation, UpdraftPlus makes configuring your WordPress backups simple:
- Organize your backups: The UpdraftPlus settings page may be accessed by going to Settings > UpdraftPlus Backups in your WordPress menu.
- At the top, click the Settings tab: Then, decide which timetable is best for you and your website. For instance, if you frequently add new pages and posts to your website, a more frequent backup might be required. Also, you can change how many backups are kept on file at once. The old backups can then be replaced by the new ones.
- Choose the location where you want your backups to be kept: To select where UpdraftPlus will save your files, scroll down the page. Choose the remote storage option that best meets your needs from the several that UpdraftPlus can integrate with. Your backups can be kept on your server or one of the following remote storage choices when using UpdraftPlus’ free version, such as Dropbox, Amazon S3 and Google Drive, etc…
Your backup files can also be emailed to any email address. Be mindful that size restrictions on mail servers are common, usually between 10 and 20 MB; backups greater than these limitations are unlikely to be received.
Each storage choice has its instructions after being chosen. Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page after completing these.
UpdraftPlus will automatically perform your first site backup once you’ve set up your storage location and the frequency of site backups.
Perform WordPress Site Back Up
Select Backup Now under the Backup/Restore tab.
You will see a notice with a choice of options. Click Backup Now after making sure the database, files, and remote storage are all checked.
The length of time it takes for the backup to complete depends on how big your website is.
Conclusion
In conclusion, UpdraftPlus is a reliable and user-friendly plugin that makes backing up your WordPress site a breeze. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can easily create a backup schedule, select the files and database tables you want to include in the backup, and a range of storage choices are available for your backup files. Additionally, the plugin’s easy restore feature allows you to quickly restore your site in the event of any data loss or website issues. By using UpdraftPlus to back up your WordPress site, you can have peace of mind knowing that your website is secure and easily recoverable in case of any unexpected events.
