Backing up your data and files from the WordPress website is one of the best ways of securing your data and ensuring that it can be retrieved at any given moment in case of a problem. At moments like cyber attacks accidental deletion or server failure, you will have your website safely stored so that you can quickly recover your website.
Here are some tips you can follow to back up your data from the WordPress website.
Multiple methods can be chosen to back up your data.
A. Using a WordPress backup plugin
One of the easiest ways of having your data stored as a backup is by using a proper plugin like Updraftplus, backup duplicator, etc. Here are the steps you can follow to back up your data using plugins.
1. Install the plugin
To backup your data you first need to go to the WordPress admin dashboard navigate to plugins click on ‘add new’ and search for a backup plugin. This plugin can be installed and activated easily to back up your data.
2. Configure backup setting
After installing the plugin you choose what you need to backup, stuff like files, database, or both, and set up the schedule for your backup. You can easily alternate the process by scheduling your backup process on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Then select the storage location like cloud service or local server to store your data.
3. Run and download the backup
After you are done configuring backup settings you can initiate manual backup or use the plug-in to automatically backup your data based on your schedule after running backup you can save a copy of the backup to your local device for an extra layer of security.
B. Manual backup
You can easily back up your WordPress manually by downloading files and exporting the database.
-To backup the files of your website follow the following steps.
1. You can use an FTP client like FileZilla to connect to your web server.
2. By navigating to your WordPress installation directory you can download the files and folders including themes, plugins, and uploads, or any WordPress core file like wp_admin and wp-includes.
-Backup your database
To back up your database you can log in to your hosting control panel and access phpMyAdmin where you select your WordPress database and export your database by choosing the quick export method in SQL format. The exported database files should be saved to your local computer for security.
C. Backing up using the hosting provider
Multiple hosting providers provide different built-in backup solutions for your WordPress website. You can look for a solution with your hosting provider to use this service.
You can log into your hosting provider and navigate to the backup section. The section is usually found under File Manager or Backup. After you get there, create or download the backup version of your website and verify whether it includes both files and databases. If not, install them again.
It is important to regularly back up your website or set it up for automatic daily, weekly, or monthly backups. Make sure your storage is safe and measure the test backups periodically.