How to Backup WordPress Multisite (Plugin + Manual Methods)

Do you know that WPBeginner is a multisite community? We use WordPress multisite to handle completely different language variations of our web site, and we take nice care to maintain it safe and working easily.

You probably have a multisite community like ours, then probably the most vital issues you are able to do is often again up your total community. This protects all of your websites, together with the principle website and subsites, from potential disasters like hacks, server points, or unintended knowledge loss.

Our private suggestion for WordPress backup multisite is to make use of Duplicator Professional. It’s a robust plugin that makes the backup course of easy and simple. Nevertheless, we understand not everybody needs to make use of a plugin for his or her backups.

That’s why on this information, we are going to present you three other ways to again up your WordPress multisite community: a multisite backup plugin, guide backups utilizing file supervisor/FTP and phpMyAdmin, and hiring knowledgeable service.

Why You Ought to Backup Your WordPress Multisite

Right here at WPBeginner, we run a WordPress multisite network to handle completely different language variations of our website. That’s why we perceive how vital it’s to maintain every little thing safe and up-to-date, and a technique to do this is with a multisite backup.

A WordPress backup multisite helps shield your total community, together with the principle website and all subsites, from potential disasters.

For instance, in case your web site is down as a consequence of human error or server points, then having a latest backup can shield towards knowledge loss. Plus, it ensures you may rapidly restore your WordPress sites to a useful state.

Backups are additionally vital for WordPress security. In case your website will get hacked or contaminated with malware, then you may simply restore it to a clear model. This protects you time and helps you keep away from shedding cash out of your website being down.

Apart from that, having a backup can also be useful if you need to make massive modifications to your multisite community. Earlier than updating themes, plugins, or WordPress itself, you may create a backup. This fashion, if one thing goes incorrect, you may return to the working model.

With that in thoughts, let’s have a look at 3 ways to again up your WordPress multisite community. Any of those strategies will work whether or not you’ve gotten a multisite with subdirectories or a multisite with different domains.

You should utilize the fast hyperlinks under to navigate by way of this tutorial:

Technique 1: Use Multisite Backup Plugin (Best Means)

Utilizing a WordPress backup plugin with multisite assist is the best option to create backups, particularly for inexperienced persons. A very good plugin handles every little thing for you, so that you don’t have to fret in regards to the technical particulars of backing up your multisite community.

We’ve examined many backup plugins with multisite assist, however Duplicator Pro stands out as our best choice.

It not solely backs up your entire WordPress website but additionally offers a catastrophe restoration choice. This characteristic is crucial for rapidly restoring your WordPress multisite community if one thing goes incorrect and also you’re locked out of your WordPress admin.

The one downside is that Duplicator Professional isn’t free. Though there’s a free version, you’ll want the Professional plan, which prices $199.50 per yr, to get multisite assist. Nevertheless, if you’re managing a number of websites on the identical community, it’s a worthwhile funding.

For a extra detailed have a look at the plugin, try our complete Duplicator review.

Step 1: Set up and Activate Duplicator

After buying Duplicator Pro, you’ll must log in to your WordPress multisite community as a super admin. After that, go forward and install the WordPress plugin because the community admin of your multisite.

As soon as put in, you should go to the Plugins » Put in Plugins web page in your WordPress community admin dashboard. Search for Duplicator Professional and click on ‘Community Activate’ beneath it.

Lastly, go to Duplicator Professional » Settings and go to the ‘Basic’ tab.

Right here, you’ll must enter the license key you obtained if you purchased the plugin. Paste the important thing into the suitable discipline and click on ‘Activate’ to allow all of the plugin’s options.

Step 2: Create a Multisite Backup

Now, let’s save all of your community’s knowledge right into a single zip file. This file can be utilized as a backup or to move your site to a new server.

Begin by going to Duplicator Professional » Backups and clicking ‘Add New.’

On the prime, give your backup a reputation. You should utilize particular dynamic tags so as to add issues like the present date and time of the backup.

This helps you simply establish backups later, particularly when you create them often.

Subsequent, you must select the place to avoid wasting your backup.

Duplicator saves backups in your server by default, however you can even use cloud storage like Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive.

The ‘Backup’ part means that you can resolve what to incorporate within the multisite backup. It has three tabs: Filters, Multisite, and Safety.

In ‘Filters,’ you may select to again up total web sites or simply create a media-only or a database-only backup. You may also pass over sure information, folders, or file extensions if you need by enabling the ‘File Filters’ choice.

For extra data on what information to avoid wasting, you may learn our information on which WordPress files you should back up.

The ‘Multisite’ part permits you to select which sub-sites to incorporate in your backup.

That is useful when you solely need to again up particular components of your community.

For further safety, go to the ‘Safety’ tab.

Right here, you may add a password or allow encryption to guard your backup file.

Transferring down the web page, you may depart the ‘Installer’ settings as they’re.

Simply click on ‘Subsequent’ to proceed.

Duplicator will now examine your multisite community.

If one thing is incorrect that wants your consideration, then Duplicator will add a ‘Discover’ label subsequent to the component. You may then click on on the arrow to see what’s occurring and resolve the issue based mostly on Duplicator’s suggestions.

If every little thing is marked as ‘Good’, go forward and click on ‘Create Backup.’

After the backup is completed, you’ll see your new backup file on the ‘Backups’ web page.

It’s a good suggestion to click on on the ‘Obtain’ button and obtain each information to your laptop. This fashion, you may restore your website even when you can’t entry your dashboard later or when you resolve to change to a unique WordPress hosting supplier.

You may also use the archive zip file to view your WordPress backup as a website.

Find out how to Restore a Multisite Backup With Duplicator

Now that you understand how to create backups, let’s have a look at the right way to restore your WordPress multisite community utilizing Duplicator Professional.

To start, go to Duplicator Professional » Backups. Discover the backup you need to use and click on the ‘Restore’ button subsequent to it.

A window will pop up exhibiting you what Duplicator discovered within the backup file. It provides you an outline of the archive and installer information. If every little thing appears to be like okay, examine the field that claims ‘I’ve learn and settle for all phrases & notices’ and click on ‘Restore Backup.’

In our case, Duplicator warned us that our addon staging website wouldn’t be restored. However that was okay with us, so we went forward with the restoration.

Subsequent, one other popup will ask you to verify that you’re working the installer with the brand new multisite and database settings.

Click on ‘OK’ to maneuver ahead.

After the restoration finishes, examine the ‘Auto delete installer information after login to safe website (advisable)’ field.

You’ll additionally see an ‘Admin Login’ button. Click on this to log again into your WordPress web site.

When you’re logged in, Duplicator will take you to Duplicator Professional » Instruments. Right here, you are able to do some ultimate checks.

We advise clicking the buttons to delete set up information for good measure, take away backup orphans, and clear the construct cache. This helps clear up your restored website and ensures every little thing runs easily.

And that’s it.

Technically, that’s all you should do to back up and restore your WordPress multisite. However listed below are some recommendations on the right way to take advantage of the Duplicator Professional plugin.

Assign a Multisite Backup as a Catastrophe Restoration Level

One nice characteristic of Duplicator Professional is having the ability to set a disaster recovery level. This tells the plugin which backup to make use of if you should restore your web site rapidly.

To arrange catastrophe restoration, you want a full backup saved in your server. You may examine this by going to Duplicator Professional » Backups.

You probably have one, simply click on the catastrophe restoration icon subsequent to that backup.

A popup ought to now seem.

Right here, simply click on ‘Set Catastrophe Restoration.’

After this, you’ve gotten two choices: copy the restoration hyperlink to a secure place or obtain a launcher file.

If one thing goes incorrect along with your WordPress multisite, you should use both of those to begin the restoration course of. Simply paste the hyperlink into your browser or open the launcher file, then observe the simple restoration steps.

Set Up Computerized Scheduled Backups

When you may create guide backups, this may be time-consuming for community admins. A extra environment friendly answer is scheduling your WordPress backup multisite activity to run mechanically.

Automated backups present a hands-off safety strategy on your WordPress multisite community. You may chill out realizing {that a} dependable plugin like Duplicator Professional is dealing with your backups on a set schedule.

To arrange automated backups, go to Duplicator Professional » Schedule Backups and click on ‘Add New.’

Now, give your backup schedule a reputation. Then, decide a ‘Backup Template.’

By default, Duplicator selects the Default template, which creates a whole WordPress backup together with information, databases, media, themes, and plugins. If wanted, you may alter this by clicking the pencil ‘Edit’ button.

In any other case, proceed to the subsequent step.

Subsequent, select the place to retailer your backups.

You’ll see a listing of cloud storage places you’ve already arrange, however you can even simply decide ‘Default Native’ to retailer the backups in your net host.

After deciding on a storage spot, you must set the backup frequency. You may select between hourly, day by day, weekly, or month-to-month automated backups.

Then, decide a Begin Time on your backups. Remember that schedules want web site visitors to start.

So when you set a day by day 6:00 AM backup however don’t get visitors till 10:00 AM, the backup will begin at 10:00 AM.

Lastly, examine the ‘Allow this schedule’ field on the backside of the web page.

Click on ‘Save Schedule’ to activate your automated WordPress multisite backups.

Technique 2: Use File Supervisor/FTP + phpMyAdmin (Handbook Backups)

For those who’re on a decent price range or need to learn to manually again up your WordPress multisite community with out counting on plugins, then we are able to information you thru the method.

This methodology provides you extra management over your backups, but it surely’s not probably the most beginner-friendly.

For this strategy, you’ll want to make use of both an FTP client or your internet hosting supplier’s file supervisor to obtain all of your web site information. You’ll additionally must again up your WordPress database utilizing phpMyAdmin.

It’s vital to do each steps as a result of backing up information with out the database (or vice versa) will end in an incomplete backup.

Let’s stroll by way of the method step-by-step.

Step 1: Backup Your WordPress Recordsdata With FTP/File Supervisor

We’ll use Bluehost‘s file supervisor for example, however the course of is comparable for many net hosts and FTP shoppers.

Begin by logging into your Bluehost dashboard and go to the ‘Web sites’ tab. Choose the location you need to again up and click on ‘Settings.’

Scroll down to search out the ‘Fast Hyperlinks’ part.

Right here, you should click on on ‘File Supervisor.’

Within the new tab that opens, discover and choose the public_html folder or root folder of your WordPress multisite community.

You’ll want to select all of the information contained in the public_html folder and click on ‘Compress’ on the prime of the web page. This may compress the principle website and all the subsites in your multisite community.

Within the popup window, select ‘Zip Archive.’

After that, simply click on ‘Compress Recordsdata.’

You’ll want to wait on your information to compress into a zipper file.

As soon as that’s finished, click on ‘Shut’ on the compression outcome window.

Now, you must discover the zip file you simply created within the public_html folder. Choose it and click on ‘Obtain’ on the prime of the web page.

This course of backs up all of the information on your total multisite community, making certain you’ve gotten a replica of your themes, plugins, and media information.

Step 2: Backup Your WordPress Database With phpMyAdmin

Now, let’s again up your WordPress multisite database.

Return to your web site’s settings web page within the Bluehost dashboard. Within the Fast Hyperlinks part, click on on ‘phpMyAdmin.’

This may open phpMyAdmin in a brand new browser tab.

Within the left column, you could choose your WordPress database. For a multisite community, the database title typically matches your primary website’s title. If not sure, you may examine your wp-config.php file for the DB_NAME worth.

When you’ve chosen the right database, click on the ‘Export’ button on the prime.

You’ll be requested to decide on an export methodology.

You may choose ‘Customized’ for extra management over the method, and you’ll preserve the format as SQL.

After selecting Customized, you may merely scroll all the way down to the ‘Output’ part.

By default, phpMyAdmin reveals the export output as textual content. To alter this, you must choose ‘Save output to a file.’

For compression, you may select both the zipped or gzipped choice. Each will assist scale back the file measurement of your database backup.

Lastly, scroll to the underside and click on the ‘Export’ button. phpMyAdmin will create and ship you the database export as a compressed file.

Congratulations! You’ve efficiently created a guide backup of your WordPress multisite database. This backup comprises all of the content material, consumer data, and settings on your total multisite community, together with the principle website and all subsites.

To revive your WordPress backup multisite, you may then add your WordPress information through the file supervisor or FTP, after which create a brand new database the place you may import your database backup.

You may learn the total directions under:

Technique 3: Rent a WordPress Upkeep Service (Arms-Off Method)

For individuals searching for probably the most handy WordPress backup multisite answer, hiring a maintenance service is the best way to go. This strategy lets WordPress consultants deal with your backup wants, releasing you as much as deal with different components of working your corporation.

Whereas there are lots of providers out there, WPBeginner Pro Services stands out for confirmed experience and expertise. With 16+ years of expertise below our belt, we’ve helped 100,000+ customers get began with their WordPress tasks.

Our WordPress maintenance and support service takes care of every little thing from software program updates and backups to round the clock uptime monitoring.

With our service, you’ll get a devoted account supervisor and on-demand emergency support from somebody who understands your corporation. This makes positive that any points or issues are addressed rapidly and successfully.

By entrusting your WordPress web sites to us, you may relaxation straightforward realizing they’re in succesful fingers. Our workforce works arduous to stop slowdowns attributable to updates, guarantee a clean consumer expertise, and preserve peak efficiency.

Be at liberty to book a free consultation call with our consultants right this moment. We’ll assess your particular scenario and advocate probably the most appropriate answer on your WordPress safety and backup wants.

We hope this text has helped you learn to again up WordPress multisite. You may additionally need to try our professional picks of the best WordPress multisite plugins or our information on how to connect your Google Drive with the WordPress media library.

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