How to backup WordPress completely

Posted by on Thursday, August 19, 2010 · 4 Comments 

If your content matters to you, especially content on your WordPress site, then please take a few moments to back it up.  It’s much like your backup of your hard drive.  You wouldn’t pass on that, don’t pass on this. Work it into your morning routine.

You’ll need complete backups in order to restore with confidence.  How do you do this?

First, backup your content by exporting it from WordPress.  Like so.

It really does take 60 seconds.  If you really don’t have 60 seconds a week to think about this, hire me. ;)   At least do it weekly, if you blog more often, daily.

Second, backup the database.  You can do this three ways.

The easy way is to install WP DB Backup and set the plugin up to email you weekly or daily versions of your database. I have mine set to weekly, both emailed to me and stored on the server.

Alternatively for plugins you can set up Automatic WordPress Backup which back everything up to an Amazon S3 server offsite.  It’s a little more complicated to set up but I’m beginning to think worth it given the recent rash of hacks with malware.

If you want to do it manually, it’s pretty easy to do that too.  Just follow the instructions straight from WordPress.

It doesn’t matter HOW you do it, so much as you do it and do it right.  Or at the very least get your assistant or web developer to ensure that it’s being done.  It’ll save you time, money and a massive headache if your site is ever infected with malware.

Buffer

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  • http://ecgridos.com awilensky

    This will not get all the media and the reference links. Such a pain to FTP all that and restore? No? WP BAckup is just the DB. The media is files in another place.

  • http://chelpixie.com/ Chel Wolverton

    If you export the file from WordPress it will include links and media file references. When you upload that into another blog, it’ll work as long as the folder is still in place.nnWhen you restore, the files should still be on the server so the export from WordPress will just re-reference those files. If something happens to your stuff server side, that’s a whole different matter than getting hacked in WordPress.nnIf you’re talking about backing up media files off the server, yes that’s another consideration. You’d simply download the uploads folder.n

  • http://ecgridos.com awilensky

    This will not get all the media and the reference links. Such a pain to FTP all that and restore? No? WP BAckup is just the DB. The media is files in another place.

  • http://chelpixie.com/ Chel Wolverton

    If you export the file from WordPress it will include links and media file references. When you upload that into another blog, it'll work as long as the folder is still in place.

    When you restore, the files should still be on the server so the export from WordPress will just re-reference those files. If something happens to your stuff server side, that's a whole different matter than getting hacked in WordPress.

    If you're talking about backing up media files off the server, yes that's another consideration. You'd simply download the uploads folder.