How to back up your WordPress website

A WordPress website consists of a database and multiple files, including the WordPress core, plugins, themes, and all the images and videos you upload. All these elements work together to keep your website running.

Everything is stored on a server, usually provided by your hosting company. This means you rely on that server to remain available, secure, and functional.

That’s why having a reliable backup system is essential. If something goes wrong, being able to restore your website quickly and with minimal effort can save you a huge amount of time and prevent unnecessary headaches.

What is a backup and when should you make one?

A backup is a copy of all the data that makes up your website, stored in another location. This could be in the cloud, on a different server, on your computer, or even on an external hard drive.

The purpose is simple: if something goes wrong, you can use the backup to restore your website and get it back up and running.

So, when should you back up your WordPress website?

The short answer is: as often as necessary to ensure you always have a recent copy available.

How often you should create backups depends on how frequently your website changes. If you run a relatively static site, weekly backups may be enough. However, sites that are updated frequently (especially e-commerce sites) may require daily or even more frequent backups.

For example, if your site breaks after a plugin update, being able to restore a backup from the previous day could get everything working again without spending hours trying to identify and fix the problem.

On the other hand, if your latest backup is several months old and your website has changed significantly since then, restoring it may create almost as much work as fixing the original problem.

Benefits of backing up your WordPress site

As you can see, regular backups are a fundamental part of good website maintenance.

If you’re still wondering why backups are so important, here’s a quick recap:

• Peace of mind: knowing that you can restore your website if something goes wrong gives you an extra layer of security.
• Easy recovery: a recent backup lets you quickly recover your website after an error, failed update, security issue, or other technical problem.
• Easy migration and cloning: a backup can also be useful when migrating or cloning your website to another hosting provider or server.

How to back up your WordPress site with a plugin

If you’re familiar with WordPress, you probably already know how many plugins are available to extend its functionality. So, of course, there are also plugins that make creating and managing backups much easier.

There are plenty of backup plugins to choose from, and they offer different approaches. For example, some create full backups of your site, while others also support incremental backups, which only save the changes made since the previous backup.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the most popular WordPress backup plugins and tools.

WordPress backup plugins

Modular DS – All your site’s management in one place

Modular DS is a platform for WordPress agencies and professionals who want to streamline site maintenance and improve client management. And, of course, backups are an essential part of that.

With Modular DS, you can:

• Automate daily, weekly, or monthly cloud backups that meet GDPR requirements.
• Choose exactly what you want to back up, including the option to exclude specific files or database tables.
• Restore backups with a single click if something goes wrong with your site.
• Create an instant backup before performing an update.
• Download backups as .zip files to your computer.
• Choose how long to retain your backups and even keep important backups indefinitely.

And the best part? Most of these features are available across all Modular DS plans.

Unlike some of the other solutions mentioned in this guide, Modular DS also includes a range of other website maintenance features, such as uptime monitoring, bulk updates from a single dashboard, and client reporting.

It also provides performance scans and stats through integrations with Google Analytics, Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and WooCommerce.

You can explore all its features for free by starting a 14-day trial.

All-in-One WP Migration

All-in-One WP Migration is one of the most widely used WordPress plugins for backing up and migrating websites.

During the export process, the plugin packages your website into a .wpress file. To restore that backup on another website, the destination site must also be running WordPress with the plugin installed.

The plugin allows you to export your website from its own dashboard. You can then import the backup into another WordPress installation when needed.

When importing a backup, the free version has an upload limit of 128 MB. This limit can be increased by installing one of the plugin’s extensions.

UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin

UpdraftPlus is another popular choice among WordPress users. One of its main advantages is the ability to back up different parts of your website separately, including your plugins, themes, files, and database.

This also means you can restore individual components when necessary rather than restoring the entire site.

Once installed, you can access its settings through the WordPress dashboard, where you can configure how often backups should run and how many copies you want to retain.

By default, backups may be stored on your website’s server, but you can configure UpdraftPlus to send them to external storage services such as Google Drive or Dropbox. Storing backups separately from your website is strongly recommended.

UpdraftPlus typically stores backup files as .zip archives.

JetBackup for WordPress

JetBackup is a backup and restore solution that has become increasingly popular among WordPress users. Originally developed for cPanel environments, it is also available as a native WordPress solution. Some of its main features include:

• Automatic backups: schedule daily, weekly, or monthly backups.
• Cloud storage: store backups with services such as Amazon S3, Google Drive, and Dropbox.
• Partial restores: restore specific components, such as databases, files, or folders, instead of restoring the entire website.
• Incremental backups: save only the changes made since the previous backup to reduce storage requirements and backup times.
• Simple interface: manage backups and restores through an interface designed to be easy to use, even for beginners.

These features make JetBackup particularly useful for dynamic websites where content changes frequently and you need greater control over your backups and restores.

XCloner

XCloner is a free plugin that allows you to store backups in external locations such as SFTP, Dropbox, Amazon S3, Google Drive, Backblaze, and others.

It lets you create customized backups of your WordPress website and restore them on another server using the automatic restore script provided by the plugin.

XCloner also uses open-source formats and technologies such as TAR, MySQL, and CSV, giving you additional flexibility when managing and restoring your backups.

4 Tips for making WordPress backups as a beginner

Are you just getting started with backups for your WordPress websites? Don’t worry, we’ve all been there.

Here are four simple tips to help you build a solid backup strategy.

Choose the right backup plugin

As we’ve seen, plugins can make WordPress backups much easier. However, not every plugin will be suitable for every website. Take the time to compare your options and choose a solution that meets your specific needs. Most importantly, make sure it supports both backups and restores.

There’s little point in having a backup if restoring it when something goes wrong is complicated or unreliable.

Back up your WordPress site regularly

We’ve already mentioned this, but it’s worth repeating: regular backups are essential.

If you’re starting out, creating a daily backup is a good rule of thumb, especially if your website is updated frequently. The more often your website changes, the more frequently you should back it up. That way, if something goes wrong, you’ll always have a relatively recent version available to restore.

Store your backups in an external location

Your backups shouldn’t live exclusively on the same server as your website.

Consider keeping additional copies in external locations such as cloud storage, another server, an external hard drive, or even a local computer.

The cloud is often the most convenient option because it allows you to automate the process and access your backups when you need them. This also gives you an additional layer of protection. If your hosting server fails, is compromised, or your website is hacked, you can still access a separate copy of your site.

Test your backups

Creating backups is only half the job. You should also make sure you can actually restore them.

From time to time, test your backup and restore process to make sure your files and database are being backed up correctly and that the backup can be restored successfully.

Conclusion

If you’re not already backing up the WordPress websites you manage, now is the time to start.

Backups are relatively inexpensive and can be easily automated. If they save you from having to rebuild a site or spend hours troubleshooting a failed update even once, they’ve already paid for themselves.

As we’ve seen, there are plenty of WordPress plugins and tools that can make the process simple, whether you need occasional manual backups or a fully automated backup strategy. And if you want to combine backups with a wide range of features designed to streamline your WordPress maintenance workflow, we recommend giving Modular DS a try.