Regularly backing up your website is essential for safeguarding your data and ensuring you can quickly recover from any issues, such as server crashes, hacking, or accidental deletions.
In this article, we'll be using the famous plugin UpdraftPlus to back up our sites
Install and activate the UpdraftPlus plugin
Log in to your WordPress website
Go to Plugins → Add New Plugin
Use the Search form and search for UpdraftPlus
Install and Activate the UpdraftPlus plugin.
Create a manual backup
The first thing we should do after installing the plugin is create a quick backup immediately.
Log in to your WordPress website
Go to Dashboard → Settings → UpdraftPlus Backups
Click on the Backup/Restore tab
Click on the Backup Now button
A window will pop up to choose the folders and whether to back up the database as well or not. We recommend using the default settings:
It should take a while for the backup to complete. The larger your site is, the longer it will take. Once it's done, you can download it to your computer by clicking here:
With this action, you save a backup for your site on the same server and on your computer.
Restore a backup
Log in to your WordPress website
Go to Dashboard → Settings → UpdraftPlus Backups
Click on the Backup/Restore tab → Existing Backups
For the backup you want to restore, click on the Restore action button
Note: In order to be able to restore a backup created by UpdraftPlus, the backup needs to remain stored on the server.
Schedule Automatic Backups
Now that we have our first backup manually, we can set the plugin to take regular backups automatically.
Log in to your WordPress website
Go to Dashboard → Settings → UpdraftPlus Backups → Settings
Choose the file backup schedule, whether manual, daily, weekly, etc. Also, look at the other settings and change them according to your needs.
Choose where the backups will be stored. You may save it on the server, but keep in mind that if the server data is lost, you won't get the backup. Because of that, sending backups elsewhere, such as DropBox or Google Drive, is recommended.
Notes:
Each service has its own settings and instructions, so please refer to the UpdraftPlus documentation for detailed instructions.
You can also check The Ultimate Guide to UpdraftPlus: How to Backup, Restore, or Migrate Your WordPress Website article for a much more in-depth tutorial.