On a coaching call the other night, one of the questions that came up was, “What is the best way to back up my WordPress Site? Doesn’t my hosting company do that for me? Do I need to worry about it?”
Those are great questions!
As soon we we went through installing WordPress, one of the first things I talked about was making backups of your site. Unfortunately, Most people only think about backups when it is too late! It is only when your site gets attacked, or crashes, or you <gulp!> delete it (yup – I did that once!) Once the ‘Oh My Gosh What Did I Do?!’ fright subsided, I realized that I had to find a way to get it back. The first thing I did was to call my hosting company to see if they could restore it. Nope! Out of Luck! From that point on, I make backups religiously!
There are a few different solutions to backing up your site. A great free solution that I recommend to everyone is the WP-DBManager plugin.聽 You can install this simply by adding a new plugin and searching for ‘WP-DBManager’. Once you activate it, you will get a new set of choices on the left side menu:
You can see there are a wealth of options available with this plugin!聽 For now, I just want to talk about the Backup DB option available. If you explore this plugin, you can begin to see the power that it brings! But Be Warned! If you are not sure what you are doing, STAY AWAY from things like Empty/Drop DB! You can delete all the content on your site!
Now that the Fear of God has been instilled into you (hopefully not – if you have any questions, post them as a comment here and I will be more than happy to answer them!) Click on the BackUp DB option. On the screen that is presented, there is an option at the bottom that says, “GZIP Database Backup File?” If you click Yes, this will compress your backup so it will take up less space.
Depending on the size of your database (and if there are limitations on your email system), you can email a copy of this back up to yourself by selecting the option, ‘Manage Backup DB’, selecting the most recent backup you created, and clicking the ‘E-mail’ button. This is a really good thing to do! It is best to have a backup in multiple locations! If you are making a backup of your home computer and you save it on your hard drive, all is lost in the event of a hard drive failure (or worse!) a fire! By emailing it to yourself, you can now retain a copy on your home computer while the original backup is hanging out on your server.
Let me warn you about 2 other things… First, it will display this message across the top of every page:
If you install this plugin, don’t worry about this message – I will write a post on how to safely remove it.
The second limitation to this plugin is that this back up will not back up 100% of your site. It will back up the contents of your database only. That is its job – to back up the database. But, your site is more than just a database! It has your themes, plugin files, etc. I found a great tool to literally back up EVERYTHING! And by everything, I mean:
- Pages & Posts (as well as the content in them)
- Comments (if you have any)
- Plugins (and their configurations)
- Footer and header information
- Tags & Categories
- Permalink structures & privacy settings
- Themes (including active themes and inactive ones!)
- Affiliate links & links of any kind
- EVERYTHING!
This tool is called WPTwin and is fantastic! I literally use it everyday to make a complete clone of my site as a backup. If anything ever happened (i.e., it got hacked, or my partner gets real angry at me, goes bonkers and deletes the site!) I can restore the site in under 2 minutes!
Here is a true story – one of my other websites, All About Gratitude, was hacked! I had a massive Link Injection attack (this means someone else went and put in all sorts of links on my pages and posts – and link to buy drugs, and other things!). It took me probably 8-10 hours of manually going into each post and cleaning up the rogue links! It was HORRIBLE! That was before I had WPTwin. If that happens today, I can simply revert to previous night’s backup (which is automatically created for me). In under 2 minutes, everything is back to normal!
WPTwin is my lifesaver now! I install it on every site I have! The only drawback to this tool is that it is not free. At the time of this writing, it is under 100 bucks which is well worth the functionality it provides (let alone the hours and hours of work it would save me in the event of another sort of mess occurring!)
Thanks, Paul!
Your timing is perfect! I was just looking at back up solutions and wasn’t finding something easy to use, but powerful enough to capture everything. WP Twin was the winner for me.
I appreciate you sharing your knowledge!
Cathy
You are welcome, Cathy! Let me know if you have any questions using it. I am glad to help (especially you 馃槈
Be Well.
Paul.
Very interesting Paul! Thanks! When I talked to my hosting company (BlueHost) they said my sites are always backed up and they have a copy. Aside from this, I have to say, I have been shy about installing new plug-ins to my site…it freaks me out to think I will mess it up. The gal who set up my WPblog said I have to backup everything before I install a plugin…maybe she meant updated the site…not sure..anyway the whole idea of messing up my site freaks me out! Perhaps WPTwin would put my mind at ease to make changes and know I could restore if something got messed up…I just though BlueHost did the backup so it was no worry. Your thoughts? Thanks again, Paul!
Julie –
If you are scared, take a deep breath and relax! Maybe read a post over at http://AllAboutGratitude.com (shameless self promotion!) – there is nothing to worry about.
If you have a good backup, you will be fine. Generally speaking, installing a plugin will not do a lot of damage (generally speaking… your mileage may vary). In the worse case, you can always restore your site. Again, that is why I really love WPTwin as I mentioned above.
With all that said, if you have any problems or questions, send me an email! I am more than happy to help you out! After all, did I ever mention my Dad was from Winnipeg?
My hosting company also said they make backups, but when I really needed it, they could not do it. Your hosting company may be different. You might want to do a test one day – call them and see if you can get a back up restored. Find out when the most recent backup was made and how long it would take to restore.
WPTwin is VERY user friendly and backs up EVERYTHING. Whenever I upgrade WordPress, I make a complete backup. When I install (or upgrade plugins), I also take a full and complete backup – it is as simple as clicking a button.
There is no need to backup after creating a new post or creating a new page – the backup should be created when you are modifying the ‘architecture’ of the site; as I mentioned earlier, if you are upgrading WordPress of adding or updating plugins.
I hope this helps. Let em know if you have any other questions!
Be Well.
Paul
Thanks, Paul – I was thinking about back-ups not long ago, and then moved on to 17 other things! Thanks for bringing me back to this important topic. Are these cloud-based backup solutions, with easy web-based restores?
I didn’t think about getting hacked or other issues. My “backup” has been to cut and paste my posts into a Word document. This sounds better.
馃檪
Ame – That will work! But, once you start to get many more pages, restoring it will be much more intense!
Wishing you a hack free & Issue free Blog!
Be Well.
Paul.
Paul,
Fabulous and easy info. I did this and sent myself a backup copy. I have already learned this the hard way when I tried to update wordpress by myself. I lost all of my blogs (luckily we got them back, but I am not sure how Jena did it!) Thanks!!
Glad to hear everything turned out well, Lisa! I am sure Jena has a few tricks up her sleeve! That why she (and I) do what we do!
Be Well.
Paul.
But WordPress has a backup already built in? It is an easy program to use. Why pay for something already functional with WP?
Great question, Roberta –
The ‘backup’ that WordPress has via the export/import functionality provides the ability to import posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags from a WordPress export file.
This is great for the content, however, it does not save your plugins, your themes, and other ‘extras’ that are not saved in your database. For me, the money paid for a premium tool like WPTwin is well worth it.
Think of it like insurance – WordPress give you liability protection, but you still don’t have Collision Insurance, or Towing coverage, or Rental Cost Coverage, etc. You do not absolutely need it, but it is really nice to have when you need it.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Be Well.
Paul.
Thanks again Paul. I host with Blue Host and when I asked them, they said they back up …plus I can see how to do it myself with ‘Scripts’ which is the new Fantastico. (if you are familiar with cpanel in Bluehost)…off topic, my friend…I have never installed a plug-in and it freaks me out (ok…maybe I will head over to AllAboutGratitude…but really it is all about not being familiar with doing new things and thinking I will ‘break’ something!) I can’t upload images or videos on my blog…someone said I need a plug in…can you please tell me what it is and how do I install it. Thanks Paul. (I had my site put up a while ago and it does seem odd that that plugin wasn’t included.)…oh well..appreciate your assistance! P.S. Thank goodness I live in Winnipeg or I’d have to go for help elsewhere 馃檪 …never knew your dad was from here.
Julie – Give me a call sometime – I will help you out!
Hi Paul
I am still trying to figure out how to back up my new WP site after lesson 4 where I do not seem to be able to use WP-DBManager plugin because my hosting company does not seem to allow it……….what would be your ALTERNATE RECOMMENDATION for backing up my WP database, WPTwin sounds great for everything else
Thanks
Bryan
Hi Bryan –
I use WPTwin to backup my site which includes the database. Since your hosting company does not allow you to use WP-DBManager, I suggest you try WPTwin.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Hi Paul. Are there any plugins that WordPress offers that are free and as good or close to WordPress Twin?
Unfortunately, I am not aware of any free ones that are as good as WPTwin. You can try BackUp Creator – the cost is lower, but I do not like it as much.