How to backup your WordPress website

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How to backup your website using Cpanel and phpmyadmin

A backup of your website can be useful in many situations. Sometimes, you may need to carry out database maintenance or some other major tasks that might require creating a backup of your website before you proceed. In the other cases, you may need it during migration or when your website is under attack. The database maintenance plugins for WordPress provide you a warning to backup your database before you proceed to the cleanup. Even if you cannot access your wordpress admin panel, you can restore your website using a previously downloaded backup via the cpanel. So,the cpanel method to download and restore backups proves useful in many circumstances. 

 In case, you want to back up your mysql database only or just the home directory, you can carry out a partial backup using your cpanel. Cpanel users can download a complete back up and restore their home directory or Mysql database via the cpanel. Several hosts also provide automatic daily or weekly backups that are stored in cloud storage. However, if you want to quickly download a backup, then instead of trying to access the cloud backup, you can easily download a fresh one using the cpanel in minutes.

Cpanel – Backup – Download and Restore

To download a complete backup of your WordPress website, login to your cpanel for the website and then search for backup. Click on the backup button. Inside the backup interface, you will find features that will help you download a backup (full or partial) and restore some parts of your website using an existing backup. The backup wizard available in the cpanel also provides similar functions but the backup panel provides more features and is easier to use. So, do not mistake backup for the backup wizard in Cpanel. 

You will find both the features, backup and restore on the same page inside the backup interface of the CPanel. To download a full backup of your website click on “download a full account backup”. The full back up includes a complete archive of all your website files and configurations. When you click on full account back up, it takes you to the next page where you can select to download the backup in your home directory. However, you can download the backup and save it to your computer once the backup process is completed.

On the same page, you will also find a list of backups that are available for download. So, if you have carried out any previous backups, they will be available here and you can download them to your computer which can be used to transfer your website to another server. However, if you want to completely restore your website, you cannot do it at once through the Cpanel. Still, if you ever need, you can restore your home directory and database separately through the cpanel backup interface.

To start the full backup process, select the backup destination as your home directory (default selection), and enter the email on which you want to be notified about the completion of the backup process. If you do not want to be notified about the process, you can select to not send any emails. Following that, click on the generate backup button. This will start the process of backup generation and when it is complete, you will find the backup listed on the same page as a tar.gz file which you can download to your computer. Once you have downloaded it to your computer, you can delete the backup copy in your home directory.

In some cases, you may want to download only a partial backup of your website. For example, before cleaning your database to speed up your website, you may want to download a backup of your mysql database, so you can restore it if anything goes wrong. You will also find these features on the backup interface right below the full backup in the Account backup section. Partial backups are available for backing up home directory and Mysql database as well as for email forwarders and email filters.

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To download a backup of the mysql database, click on your database listed under databases below the “Download a Mysql Database Backup”. On the left you will find the options to download backups for the home directory and the database while on the right, you will find the options to restore these backups.

You can also download a backup of your Mysql database from php myadmin. Login to php myadmin through the cpanel and select the database. It will show a list of the tables included in your database. Now, click on export button on the top. It will open up the export interface and you can select the quick option if you do not need to make any selections or changes but just want a full backup of your database. Otherwise, you can select to download a custom database backup. With a custom backup, you can select to download only the tables you want and leave the ones you do not need or are not in use by your WordPress installation. After you have selected the tables you want to download, select gzipped for compression and hit the go button at the bottom when you are ready to download the backup. Use the Import button to upload and restore a backup. Just click on Import and select the mysql backup file and upload it. Hit go and within minutes the backup will be uploaded and restored.

There are more methods for downloading website backups in WordPress. The most popular method is the plugin method and used when you have to move your WordPress site to a different server or to regularly download backups of your website. The plugin option is also good since it allows you to select the files and folders you want to backup and leave the ones you do not need. There are several such backup plugins in this list including Updraft plus which has 6,314 five star ratings and is the most popular backup plugin. Another great option is BackWP up plugin. You can install any of these plugins and run a backup of your website or only partial backups including the files and folders you need to backup. Later, if you are moving WordPress to a different installation (server), you can again use the plugin to restore your WordPress site. Jetpack also provides backup features which were previously called Vault press and can be used to migrate a WordPress site and download backups.

Running regular backups of your wordpress site is a good practice from a security viewpoint. You can instantly bring your site online in case anything goes wrong or if a hacker or plugin vulnerability has caused your site to stop working. While you can manually do it easily from your cpanel account using the backup feature, you have more options before you. In some cases, when you might nto be able to login to your wp-admin panel, the cpanel backup and restoration method proves especially useful for restoring website functionality. The most popular option is the use of plugins to create and download backups. There are several premium plugins in this list that offer extended features to make your task easier. However, if you like to do things yourself, you can do that easily through cpanel. Especially, when you are planning to clean your database, you must first download a backup using either the cpanel backup feature or by exporting a backup file through the php myadmin interface.  Another option for exporting and importing databases is the Mysql workbench. If you are an advanced user, you can use the mysql workbench to move your database. Advanced users can also backup and restore mysql databases using the mysqldump command.

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