How to Take Backup of WordPress Site (Manually from cPanel) Easy Steps

I am smart, I use automated backup plugins for my website – Are you saying this to yourself?

It won’t bite if you know the method of how to make a complete backup your entire WordPress site from cPanel. Knowing various methods for backup is strongly recommended by the experts. In order to do that, you will need multiple backup systems.

Why?

Because, if any of the backup methods fail, you will still have secondary backup plans. And more importantly, creating frequent backups for your WordPress site is something that professionals usually maintain.

How To Take Backup of WordPress site?

To backup your entire WordPress site through cPanel, you will need to create backups for Home Directory and database.

Off-topic –

Those who want to start their own businesses may choose WordPress hosting business. This business requires minimum capital and there are lots of benefits of WordPress hosting. You may want to take a look at whether you want to use WordPress hosting service or want to be a provider yourself.

After that, you need to restore a backup website with cPanel. We have divided the whole process into 4 parts. We are going to break them down one by one –

In order to recover every aspect, you need to backup your website using cPanel. So, let’s get started –

Backup WordPress using cPanel

1.

Enter something like this inside your browser’s URL –

http://yourdomainname.com/cpanel

You can also use the 2083 port to access your cPanel – 

http://yourdomainname.com:2083

You must enter your domain name in the (yourdomainname.com) section. Now, enter the credentials for your Username and Password provided by your hosting provider to login into your cPanel

2.

Now, go to –

cPanel >> Files section >> Backup

This will look something like the image below in the Basic theme –

3.

Click on the blue “Download a Full Website Backup” button –

4.

1. Under the “Generate a Full Backup” section, click on “Home Directory”.
2. If you don’t want to receive an email notification once the file is downloaded, make sure the radio button (as indicated in the picture) is checked.
3. Now, click on the “Generate Backup” button to start the backup process.

5.

Once the backup process is started, you will see a message like the below –

6.

To monitor the real-time backup generation process’s status, click on the “Go Back” button. You will notice a (

) sign beside the file when the process is complete. Click on the name of the file to download it.

Now that you have learned how to restore your site with cPanel backup, it’s time to learn how to take backup of your site’s database and restore it.

Bonus Method:

Custom database backup in PHPMyAdmin

Login to your cPanel as usual and select ‘PHPMyAdmin’ that is inside the database section

After selecting ‘PHPMyAdmin’, a screen like below may appear –

Select the appropriate MySQL that you want to create a backup for –

Now, select the database that is associated with your website. Once you select the database, you will see something like the image below with several menu options –

Then, click on ‘Export’ which will let you export the database.

There are 2 Export Methods –

Quick: This allows exporting the entire database. It is quick and easy.

Custom: This allows you to select the components inside a particular database that you want to backup

If you go for the Quick method, just make sure SQL is selected under the Format section –

If you go for the Custom method, you will notice a table that appears with a list of selections. Select the components that you want to backup.

Press the ‘Go‘ button after following any one of these methods. This will download a backup copy of the database.

The Export part is over. Now, it’s time for the Import part. Click on the Import tab that is beside the Export tab. You will see a page like below –

Locate the backup file (with .sql extension) that you have just downloaded after clicking the “Choose File” button.

After you locate the file, leave the rest of the settings as they are. Finish the Import part by simply clicking the ‘Go’ button.

These related questions are worth taking a look

Where are cPanel backups stored?

Ans: cPanel’s architecture may vary slightly depending on the hosting provider. A backup file should be stored in the /backup/cpbackup directory by default, despite your hosting provider. If you don’t see the file there, you can always find the backup file’s destination by logging into your cPanel and going to cPanel in the file manager section. Hence, the file manager section is situated under the home section. In brief, like below-

cPanel login >> Home >> cPanel in file manager

How can I recover permanently deleted files from cPanel?

Ans: This is a very important matter. Without adequate backup, you may lose something very precious. Follow these steps according to and you may find a solution –

• Login to your cPanel
• Go to – Files >> Backups
• To get your desired file/folder which has been lost, it is ideal to select the most recent backup
• Download and save the file with a (.tar.gz)
• Unzip the file 2 times and you will find your missing files hopefully. We suggest using the 7-zip to extract.

How often should I backup my website?

Ans: It depends on how often you would like to take backup for your website. You can take backup for your website daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly. However, the moderate time will be taking backups every month.

A 30 days backup is worthy and it is neither too soon nor too late. Remember, don’t just store the backup file inside your website or local machine after getting it. Along with saving it in your local machine, you can store it in cloud storage like Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, etc.

As a result, when your local drive becomes corrupted or your website is hacked, you will still have a backup plan. It’s like Linus Torvalds (Finnish-American software engineer) speech –

“Backups are for wimps, Real men upload their data on FTP site and have everyone else mirror it”

– Linus Torvalds

However, it is not true in all cases, especially don’t upload your backup to an FTP site. If you have your own personal FTP server, you can do this.

Tools used by the hosting providers like ARN Host?

Ans: Hosting providers also use various tools that generate auto backups for your website. Sadly, you can’t expect all hosting providers to offer such services. Some hosting providers do not take responsibility for backing up their customer’s websites.

ARN Host uses tools – jet backup, cPanel default backup system that takes auto backups for each day. So, even if a customer doesn’t take backup for his website on his own, ARN Host got his back. It is a reliable Web host company in Bangladesh.

What are the best backup plugins for WordPress?

Ans: Well, there are many plugins with good reputations for WordPress site backup. Among all these plugins, we honestly think these 3 plugins stand out from the crowd in terms of providing serious responsibility for taking backups.

These 3 plugins are –

• UpdraftPlus
• BackupBuddy
• VaultPress (Jetpack Backup)
• All-in-One WP Migration

Or, if you want to migrate your site, you can read our other post called “How to Migrate a Website from One Server to Another.”

Ending thoughts…

At the end of this article, we suggest you ensure multiple backup plans for your website. And if your website is growing tremendously, it needs more security. So, ensuring a few methods of backups whether they are manual or automatic is essential.

On top of this, you can use various plugins as we have already mentioned above to protect your website as a user. BlogVault and Duplicator can also be some of the professional backup plugins for your website.

We hope this article was instructional enough to make you completely understand the various processes of restoring your website using cPanel. Feel free to leave a comment if you have any queries regarding the methods.