How To Manually Backup WordPress Website
Introduction
Have you created your WordPress site and now want to create a security backup copy? Don’t worry, in this detailed article I will explain How To Manually Backup WordPress Website and without using any plugins.
As you know, regularly backing up the MySQL files and database related to your website can be a tedious job, but it allows you to feel comfortable in case something unexpected happens.
The procedure is quite technical, but reading this article I will explain step by step and in a simple way how to do it.
How To Backup Site Files
Ok, first log in with your credentials at the hosting company where you bought your webspace (in my case it’s SiteGround ).
Once logged in, go to the “My Accounts” section and click on “Go to cPanel”.
Obviously, if your hosting provider does not use cPanel, you can use the file manager that provides you or alternatively a free software such as FileZilla that allows you to manage the files of your site directly from your PC via an FTP connection.
Inside the cPanel, look for the “Files” section and click on the “File Manager” item.
In the window that opens you will find, inside the “public_html” folder, the list of all the files related to your website that WordPress needs to work correctly on your domain.
Since I am using the test site ” https://www.staging.assistenzawponline.it” to show you the procedure, I will find the files related to this site in the ” staging ” folder, but you will obviously find the list of the files of your WordPress installation ready in the folder “public_html”, without having to select any sub-folder.
At this point select with the mouse all the files in the list and go to compress them within your server, clicking on the toolbar at the top of the item “Compress” (or “Compress”, if you use cPanel in Italian).
In the window that opens, select “Zip Archive” as the type of compression and, if you want, rename the compressed package in the lower box (for example, I wrote “backup”). Then click on “Compress File (s)” and wait for the file compression to be performed.
Once the compression is finished, click on “Close” and try to reload the File Manager window.
In the list that appears you will see that the archive.zip you just created has been added, which I recommend you select and save in a safe place on your PC, for example on the desktop.
If you use software like FileZilla instead of cPanel, the procedure for backing up your site files is practically the same.
In fact, you just have to select the files related to your site, save them on the desktop, and finally compress them in an archive.zip, just like I just showed you.
Well, continuing to read the article, I will show you how to make a backup copy of the MySQL database associated with your WordPress site as well.
How to backup WP MySQL database
Ok, inside your cPanel look for the “Databases” section and click on the “phpMyAdmin” application. Inside this, as I explained earlier, there are all the databases you have created and which are associated with your websites.
Now, to understand which database is connected to the site you are backing up, go back to your ” File Manager ” and look in the list for the file called “wp-config.php”.
Click on this file with the right mouse button and select the item “View” (or “View” ).
If you are using FileZilla you can similarly download the file and open it directly on your PC.
Once you open the file you will notice, among the MySQL settings mentioned in it, the name of the WordPress database, which will be enclosed in quotation marks.
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This is the very name of the database connected to the site you are backing up.
In fact, returning to the “ phpMyAdmin ” application you will find the same name in the database list on the left (in my case it is called “ wordpr06_stage ”).
Now select the database and in the next window, you will find all the tables connected to it.
Scrolling down the page then click on the item “Select all” and from the drop-down menu select “Export”.
At this point in the new screen, I suggest you select “Custom” as the export method. Then from the export parameters in the “Output” section under “Compression” choose the ” compressed with zipping” method from the drop-down menu.
Finally, leave all the other parameters unchanged and click on the “Run” button at the bottom of the page.
Lastly, you just have to wait for the server to create the archive .zip of the database connected to your site.
Once this is ready I recommend that you leave the filename unchanged and save it on your desktop as you did previously with the compressed archive of files related to your site.
At this point, your backup will be completed and you will have copies of your WordPress site and MySQL database files ready for any eventuality.
With these, you can in fact quickly restore your WordPress site in case there are problems.
Conclusion
What I just showed you is the simplest method to make a complete backup of your WordPress site completely manually.
Instead, I advise against doing this using a plugin because with large sites (over 200 MB) this will almost certainly not have a positive outcome.
This happens because there are time limits at the server level for which the plugins time out after a certain amount of time and therefore are unable to perform the backup completely.
As you can see, the procedure is not that complicated and if you have followed my instructions you will surely be able to backup your WordPress site without difficulty.
Of course, if you need clarification, leave me a comment in the form below, I’ll be happy to help you!