How to Back up Your WordPress Site Before Migrating

Few issues will make an even bigger distinction within the success of your coming migration than studying find out how to again up your WordPress web site and make the most of your backups in case of emergencies.

In any case, with a lot of frequent WordPress migration issues threatening to thwart your progress at each flip, it’s all the time a good suggestion to have a spare copy of your information and databases in case one thing unexpectedly goes unsuitable.

Beneath, we’ll discuss you thru the straightforward step-by-step strategy of backing up your WordPress web site and description one of the best instruments for the job.

Why You Ought to Again Up Your Website Earlier than Migrating

Migrating an internet site means shifting it from its present dwelling to a brand new dwelling.

Similar to once we transfer dwelling from one home to a different, issues can typically get misplaced, broken, or damaged alongside the best way. Nonetheless, as a substitute of the damaged vases and lacking cutlery, it’s corrupt databases and vanishing web page information that you could be encounter throughout your WordPress migration.

The excellent news is that in contrast to once we bodily transfer dwelling, once we transfer our web site’s dwelling, we will make a backup copy of every part we have to take with us; on this case, that’s issues like:

• Weblog posts and landing pages
• Pictures and media sources
• Databases
• Customized coding
• Plugins

As chances are you’ll recall, in the event you learn our information to preparing for a website migration, making this backup copy earlier than starting the information switch means you’re well-equipped to switch any important WordPress parts that didn’t fairly make it intact.

Learn how to Again Up Your WordPress Web site

1. Set up a WordPress Backup Plugin

The quickest and simplest method to create an internet site backup in WordPress is to make use of a plugin.

There are scores of high choices to select from, and we’ve listed a few of our favorites in our round-up of the eight best WordPress backup tools.
Nonetheless, for this tutorial, we’ll be utilizing our most popular backup plugin, UpDraftPlus.

We like this one as a result of it’s not solely straightforward to make use of however makes it straightforward to again up your website to a third-party cloud platform like Dropbox and restore your website once more from the identical location.

The plugin is offered in free and premium variations, with the premium plan higher for bigger websites with larger tables and better file portions.

Your first job then is to download UpDraftPlus and select both the free or premium plan.

Alternatively, you’ll be able to set up it from inside WordPress by navigating to Plugins – Add New.

Set up and activate the plugin as you’ll another, and let’s get the backup course of underway.

2. Configure Your Schedule and Storage Choices

One of many small however fantastic issues that make UpDraftPlus among the best WordPress plugins to assist along with your website migration is that you simply don’t have to search around by your dashboard menu to seek out its settings and capabilities.

The second it’s activated, the settings tab is instantly highlighted for you, and all you must do is click on press right here to begin.

Doing so will take you to the principle UpDraftPlus Backup/Restore dashboard.

From right here, you can hit the Backup Now button and get the entire course of underway instantly, however first, we suggest you take a look at the assorted settings and choices.

A. File and Database Backup Scheduling

First, you’ll be able to manually backup your information which is an efficient possibility in case your migration is occurring imminently.

Alternatively, in the event you’re not as a consequence of switch your website instantly and extra modifications are prone to be made to it earlier than you do, you need to use the scheduling choices.

This can can help you set an automatic backup course of at recurrently set intervals starting from each few hours to day-after-day, week, or month.

UpDraftPlus Premium customers can even select the exact time when the backup ought to happen, one thing you’ll little doubt admire in the event you want to run your WordPress maintenance tasks in a single day when there’s much less drain in your servers.

B. Distant Storage Choices

UpDraftPlus has its personal premium distant storage possibility referred to as UpDraftPlus, which begins at $70 per 12 months.

That stated, you’re below no obligation to make use of it because the plugin integrates effortlessly with a wealth of different storage platforms so you’ll be able to export your backed-up information and databases for safekeeping.

Choices embrace: 

• Amazon S3
• Backblaze
• Google Cloud
• Google Drive
• Microsoft OneDrive
• Microsoft Azure
• Rackspace
• WebDAV
• And extra

You may as well export your backups to your electronic mail account or a third-party server via FTP.

For our backup, we’re going to save lots of every part to a Google Drive account.

To try this, merely title the folder the place you need the backup to be saved and register along with your Google account.

With that carried out, click on Full Setup, and also you’ll be able to go.

4. Backup Your Recordsdata

Clicking Full Setup will take you again to the principle UpDraftPlus dashboard, the place you’ll be able to lastly click on the large, blue ‘Backup Now’ button we confirmed you earlier.

This triggers a pop-up, the place it’s best to be sure that each database and file backup choices are chosen, then click on Backup Now.

You possibly can watch every part being backed up in actual time, and when it’s carried out, you’ll be capable to obtain, delete, or restore your backups from inside UpDraftPlus whereas a replica of your backup may also be saved in your chosen distant storage possibility.

Learn how to Backup Your WordPress Website Earlier than Migration: Recap and Subsequent Steps

As you’ve realized by now, backing up your WordPress web site previous to migrating it’s a easy, 4-step course of:

1. Set up a backup plugin like UpDraftPlus

2. Select between guide or mechanically scheduled backups 

3. Select a distant storage choice to export your backed-up information and databases to

4. Run the backup

So what precisely do you do along with your WordPress backups now that you’ve them?

Merely hold maintain of them in case one thing goes unsuitable throughout your migration course of, and you might want to substitute lacking or broken property.

If such an emergency does happen, you’ll be able to hit the restore button within the UpDraftPlus plugin, select which parts you might want to restore, and hit ‘Subsequent’ to get the ball rolling.

That can assist you proceed with the remainder of your web site switch, see our high ideas for a seamless WordPress migration.