Keeping backup and knowing the right way to use the backup data to restore the WordPress website is essential for every WordPress user. Who knows! When do you need to struggle with any kind of bad situation on your WordPress website! So, you must understand the backup and restore process of a WordPress Website. This article will guide you to smoothly backups and restore your WordPress site with UpdraftPlus.
What are Backup and Restore?
Backup is one of the essential security features of any website. Backup and restore means the process of creating and storing copies of data that can use to protect your website against data loss or failure.
Sometimes you may need to make a functional recovery. Recovery from a backup generally involves restoring the data to the primary location or to an alternate location where one can use it in place of the lost or damaged data.
Why should you need to take a backup in WordPress?
Taking a regular backup of your website is the most helpful maintenance part. Meanwhile, many of us think that the importance of website backups is not required until it is essential. But when your beloved website’s fate depends on having a website backup, you will blame yourself for not doing it.
There are many reasons why backing up your website is essential. Let’s take a closer look at the main reasons.
1) Your site may be broken or hacked on purpose:
Nowadays, it’s a common issue that hackers hack many websites for many purposes. Even the most minor and most secure sites can be hacked. Google says more than 30,000 websites are hacked in a single day. Even if you are among them, if you have a backup of the site, you will be able to restore the work and appearance of your site in the quickest possible time.
2) Your PC can crash:
Many of us use the computer’s memory to store our website’s backup, but it shouldn’t be the primary place. Computers break down too. To prevent this type of data collapse and also for a peaceful and sweet sleep at night, you need to save a backup in 3 places:
- on the computer.
- An overcast storage.
- on the live site.
3) Unexpected Viruses can slowly destroy essential data:
The actual purposes of malware and viruses are to harm your essential data and documents, and that’s why they are put on the Internet. If unexpectedly they enter your site’s data, they make changes to it and often eat up your website from the inside. Over time, it breaks down. So, regular website backup ensures that you can restore it to work correctly.
4) Updates can break the site:
Wait a minute! Are you surprised? Yes, yes, you read that correctly. Sometimes new updates can damage your site. It can happen if it is not appropriate for your site, the site is overloaded, the memory is not enough, your site is conflicting with new changes and many other nuances.
However, not updating is not an option. Your site becomes exposed to hacking and viruses. In this case, keeping a regular backup of your website ensure that you can always restore your site whatever happens.
Lets take a backup of your WordPress site with UpdraftPlus:
The most comfortable and quickest way to backup your website is by using a WordPress backup plugin. There are many WordPress backup plugins, but UpdraftPlus is one of the most trusted WordPress backup and restore plugins and is easy to set up.
Installing UpdraftPlus :
Installing UpdraftPlus is just like the same process as installing other plugins. To install UpdraftPlus, you may follow these steps.
First, you need to go to your WordPress dashboard, then go to Plugins > Add New.
Now type UpdraftPlus into the search bar.
Then find the UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin, click on Install Now to install the plugin, and activate it.
Backup your WordPress website by using UpdraftPlus:
Congratulation! You’ve installed the UpdraftPlus successfully. Now it’s time to customize the setting as your need.
Once the plugin has been installed and activated, you need to visit the Settings » UpdraftPlus Backups page to configure the plugin setting.
Now you need to click on the Settings tab.
It is the page where you will set up an automatic backup schedule and a remote location to store your backups as your need.
Choosing a Backup Schedule
Check all the options carefully and choose the best backup schedule according to your interest. Select a backup plan for all your files; files include your WordPress themes, plugins, images, and other uploads.
Now you need to select a backup schedule for your WordPress database. A small reminder to you WordPress is a database-driven software. It means all of your posts and pages, comments, website settings, are stored in the database.
One important thing is your backup schedule should be based on how often you add new content to your website. It depends on your uses and preference.
The next step is where do you want to keep your backup data. There are many options to store your backup files. Now you have to choose a place where to store your files.
Generally, we make a big mistake in saving our backups in the exact location of our website. Losing your website means you will also lose access to your backup files.
To prevent this unwanted mistake, you need to choose a remote cloud storage service to store your backups.
The most flexible thing about UpdraftPlus is it allows you to save your backups to several cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and many others. You can also send your backups to a specific email address.
Now click on a remote service you prefer most and select it, and you will see setup instructions below.
Using Google Drive for storing backup:
The most flexible thing about UpdraftPlus is it allows you to save your backups to several cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and many others. You can also send your backups to a specific email address. Now click on a remote service you prefer most and select it, and you will see setup instructions below.
For this tutorial, we will show you how to use Google Drive as your remote backup storage service with UpdraftPlus. We will move forward and click on Google Drive to select it.
Now scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the save changes button to save the changes.
After saving it, you should be prompted to press a link to complete your authorization. You have to sign in with the google drive account you want to use to store your backup files and allow UpdraftPlus to access your google account to save your regular backups.
Now follow the link, and you should be asked to choose your Google Account/Sign in to your Google Account and then be asked to grant permission to the UpdraftPlus app; once you click on allow button, this should take you to the following screen.
Here you need to click on the complete setup button to finish the progress, and you will be taken back to your WordPress website.
Now you are authorized with Google Drive and can now easily backup your WordPress website.
Creating Manual WordPress Backups with UpdraftPlus
Generally, UpdraftPlus is used for keeping an automatic backup of WordPress websites as users need, but a user can also manually create backups any time they desire.
If you want to take a manual backup by using UpdraftPlus, then please flow these steps below:
First, you need to go to Settings » UpdraftPlus Backups and click on the ‘Backup Now’ button to start the manual backup process.
After the click, you’ll have a pop-up with options to select files/database backup and whether you want to keep the backup to remote storage. Now click on the ‘Backup Now’ button to start the manual backup process.
Now it’s time to back up your files/data. It’ll take some time, depending on your file size. You can monitor the backup process on the settings page.
That’s how you can easily take backup of your WordPress website with UpdraftPlus manually.
Restore your WordPress Website by using UpdraftPlus:
The most challenging and valuable part about backups is restoring the files with ease. UpdraftPlus provides us with an easy and user-friendly way to restore our WordPress site from backup.
If your WordPress site was hacked or broken or unwanted data failure caused, or you want to start fresh, you will first need to delete everything and install WordPress again. Now, you will need to install the UpdraftPlus plugin again on your fresh new WordPress site and activate it.
After activation, you need to visit the Settings » UpdraftPlus Backups page and click on the Restore button.
It will carry you to the backups page. UpdraftPlus will scan your server to see if it can find a current backup in the/wp-content/updraft/ folder on your website.
However, since you deleted everything from your website, it will not find any backup files there.
If you kept the backup files on your computer, you could click on the ‘Upload backup files’ link to manually upload and restore them.
Restoring backups from Remote Locations:
You can also connect UpdraftPlus to remote locations (such as Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.) to restore your files. This way, UpdraftPlus will be able to scan remote locations and use your previously-stored backups.
To do this, you need to click on the Settings tab and then choose the remote location you used earlier to store your backups.
You have to follow the instructions to authenticate your website with the remote storage service. Now you can reverse back to the ‘Existing Backups’ tab and click on the ‘Rescan remote location‘ link.
N:B: Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom of the page to restore your settings.
UpdraftPlus plugin will now look for backups in the remote storage location and display them below. You can now click on the restore button next to a backup. UpdraftPlus will now ask you to select what you would want to restore. You need to select all options according to your need and click the ‘Restore’ button.UpdraftPlus will now bring your backup files from the remote location and start restoring your site from the backup. Isn’t it simple? If you’ve any questions, please let us know through the comment box.
Pros and Cons of Updraftplus:
In our user preference, UpdraftPlus is an effective WordPress backup plugin, and it’s a fantastic choice for DIY users who desire the opportunity to choose their backup schedule and remote storage location.
UpdraftPlus is a free plugin; that’s why it’s a popular choice among users. However, there is a premium version of UpdraftPlus; you can upgrade to UpdraftPlus Premium to access premium facilities and addons such as Website Migrator, UpdraftVault, priority support, and more options. It’ll cost $70 per year. Like other WordPress backup plugins, UpdraftPlus cannot do real-time backups of your website.
Final Thoughts:
Backup is the primary level of maintenance of your website. Backup allows you to recover your website in an emergency. However, backup cannot protect your website against common security threats like hacking, malware, code injection, etc. To prevent these, you have to use a proper security plan for your WordPress website.
Overall, UpdraftPlus is a fantastic backup plugin for those who want an easily accessible and effective backup plugin without any cost.
I hope this article helped you quickly back up and restore the WordPress sites with UpdraftPlus.
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Tags: backup Backup and restore in WordPress Backup Plugin Backup WordPress restore Restore WordPress UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup and Restore Plugin WordPress Plugin WP
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