How to Back Up Your WordPress Website

Backups are the safety net every website owner needs but too many neglect until it’s too late. A hacked site, a failed plugin update or an accidental deletion can wipe out months of work in seconds. With a reliable backup strategy in place, recovery takes minutes rather than days.

WordPress sites consist of two distinct components that must both be backed up: the files on the server (your theme, plugins, uploads and WordPress core) and the database (your posts, pages, settings and user data). Missing either one leaves you unable to fully restore your site. This guide explains how to back up both, and where to store those backups safely.

What a complete WordPress backup includes

A full WordPress backup covers everything in your site’s root directory — the wp-content folder containing your themes, plugins and media uploads, the wp-config.php file that holds your database credentials and site settings, and any custom files you have added to the server. You do not necessarily need to back up the WordPress core files themselves since these can always be re-downloaded from wordpress.org, but backing up everything is simpler and leaves no ambiguity.

The database holds all your dynamic content: posts, pages, comments, widget settings, plugin configuration, user accounts and WooCommerce orders. It is stored separately from the files on your server and must be exported independently — typically as a .sql file. If you restore only the files without the database, your site will be broken. If you restore only the database without the files, the design and functionality will be missing.

Backup plugins and automated schedules

The easiest way to back up WordPress is with a dedicated plugin. UpdraftPlus is the most popular free option and supports automatic scheduled backups of both files and database, with direct upload to remote storage including Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3 and FTP. The premium version adds real-time backups and migration tools. WPvivid, BackWPup and Duplicator are well-regarded alternatives.

Set your backup schedule based on how frequently your site changes. A blog that publishes once a week might be fine with daily database backups and weekly full backups. An e-commerce store processing orders every hour needs real-time or at minimum hourly database backups. Configure your plugin to retain at least 30 days of backups — having only the most recent copy means a problem that goes unnoticed for a week could leave you restoring to a corrupted state.

Off-site storage and testing your restores

Never store your only backup on the same server as your website. If the server is compromised, corrupted or deleted, your backups go with it. Always send backups to a remote location: cloud storage such as Google Drive or Dropbox, a different hosting account, or a local hard drive downloaded via FTP. Most backup plugins handle this automatically once you connect the remote storage credentials.

Critically, test your backups. A backup that cannot be successfully restored is worthless. At least quarterly, download your latest backup, spin up a staging environment or a local WordPress install with a tool like LocalWP, and run through the restore process end-to-end. This confirms the backup is complete and that you are familiar with the restore procedure before you need it under pressure.