If you own a WordPress site, you know that there is always the constant threat of hacks, server failure and data loss. Making a backup of your website regularly goes a long way in ensuring that should the worst happen, you always have a copy of your data file that can be instantly restored, saving you hours and hours of rework as well as protecting you from financial loss. There are several free and premium WordPress plugins that can help you make a backup of your WordPress site. In this tutorial, we will learn how to backup WordPress site using UpdraftPlus.
How to Backup WordPress Site Using UpdraftPlus
UpdraftPlus is a free WordPress plugin that lets you backup WordPress site to the cloud such as Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, Rackspace Cloud, DreamObjects, FTP, SFTP, SCP, WebDAV, OpenStack Swift or via email and restore it back with just a single click. It is one of the most popular free backup plugins available and comes with plenty of great features such as scheduling automatic backups, choosing which components you want to backup, quickly restoring backups, copying and moving sites to new locations, resuming failed backups automatically and splitting large sites into multiple archives among others.
You can use the UpdraftPlus plugin to backup a website to more than one destination. However you will need to purchase add-ons for each additional destination, which costs about $20 apiece.
Backup WordPress site to Dropbox
To backup WordPress site to Dropbox:
1. Login to your website and on the left pane, click Plugins->Add New.
2. in the Add Plugins page, in the search box, type updraftplus and hit Enter.
3. From the results displayed, click Install Now in the UpdraftPlus Backup and Restoration plugin box.
4. In the pop up that asks if you want to install the plugin click OK.
5. In the next screen, click Activate.
6. You will now be redirected to the plugins page. Scroll down to UpdraftPlus – Backup/Restore and click Settings to start configuring the plugin.
7. In the UpdraftPlus Backup/Restore page, select the Settings tab. If you wish to automate your file and database backups, select a time interval from the respective dropdown options. You can also choose how many of the scheduled backups you want to retain. Doing a daily backup of your database is preferable since you probably update it everyday so rolling back to a previous date may be easy. File backups can be done on a biweekly or monthly basis as there may not be many changes that necessitate a frequent update.
8. Scroll down to Email and check the box to have a basic backup report sent to the website admin’s email.
9. Scroll down to the Copying Your Backup To Remote Storage section. From the Choose your remote storage dropdown menu, select an option. Depending on the storage option you choose, you will be required to follow specific rules. Let’s first take a look at how to backup WordPress site to Dropbox. From the dropdown list select Dropbox.
10. Click Save Changes.
11. At the top of the screen click the link on the UpdraftPlus Notice to authenticate Dropbox.
12. Sign in to Dropbox with the necessary credentials and click Allow to grant access to UpdraftPlus to access your account.
That’s it! Your WordPress site backup will now happen according to the schedule you have set.
Backup WordPress Site to Google Drive
If you’d rather backup WordPress site to Google Drive instead of Dropbox, here’s what you need to do.
1. In the Settings page, Choose your remote storage dropdown menu, select Google Drive. The setup to install Google Drive backup isn’t as straightforward as Dropbox as you need to create a Client ID and activate a Drive API. Simply follow the link mentioned in the page to go to your Google API Console.
2. In the Google Developers Console page, click Create a Project.
3. In the New Project dialog, enter a project name and a project ID for your reference, agree to the terms of service and click Create.
An Activities window will show up at the bottom of the screen indicating the progress of your project. Once it is complete, you will be taken to the Project Dashboard.
4. On the dashboard, in the Boost your app with a Google API section, click Enable an API.
5. In the Enabled APIs page, in the Browse APIs section, scroll down to Drive API and click OFF. In the pop up screen that follows, accept Google APIs terms of service and click Accept.
The API will now be enabled and will display at the top of the screen in the Enabled APIs section.
6. On the left pane of the project dashboard, click Consent Screen. This screen configuration is done to create the form that will show up for users whenever you request access to their private data. Just select an email address and add a product name and click Save.
7. In the left pane, click Credentials. In the right pane, in the OAuth section, click Create a new Client ID.
8. In the Create Client ID pop-up, ensure that Web application is selected. In the Authorized JavaScript origins text box, enter your site’s domain name.
In the Authorized redirect URIs text box, you need to enter the URL copied from the UpdraftPlus page on your WP dashboard.
Click Create Client ID.
9. Close the dialog and you will see the details for Client ID for web application. Copy the CLIENT ID and the CLIENT SECRET to the Google Drive Client ID and Google Drive Client Secret sections in the UpdraftPlus Settings in the WP dashboard.
10. Click Save Changes.
11. At the top of the screen, in the UpdraftPlus notice section, click the link to authenticate your Google Drive account. Once you have completed the authentication you will see a success message in your dashboard.
That’s it! You have successfully configured to backup WordPress site to Google Drive.
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