How to Back Up a WordPress Website (And Restore It If Something Breaks)

WordPress sites break. It is not a question of whether it will happen — it is when. A plugin update conflicts with your theme, a hosting migration goes wrong, or someone accidentally overwrites a file they should not have touched. Without a backup, you are starting from scratch. With one, recovery takes minutes.

Setting up backups is one of the first things I do on any new WordPress site, before adding content and before going live. This guide covers how to back up your site properly, what tools to use, and how to restore if you ever need to.

Quick Answer / Summary

The fastest way to set up WordPress backups is to install UpdraftPlus, configure it to back up your files and database on a schedule, and connect it to remote storage like Google Drive or Dropbox. The free version handles everything most sites need. Once configured, backups run automatically and you can restore with a few clicks from inside WordPress.

Why This Matters

A WordPress backup has two parts: the database (your posts, pages, settings, and user data) and the files (your theme, plugins, uploads, and WordPress core). You need both. A database backup alone will not restore your site if your theme files are corrupted. A file backup alone will not recover posts that were deleted from the database.

Hosting providers often include server-level backups, but these vary in how often they run, how long they are retained, and whether restoring is self-serve or requires a support ticket. Relying solely on your host is a risk. Your own backups give you control over frequency, retention, and the restore process.

How to Back Up WordPress with UpdraftPlus

UpdraftPlus is the most widely used free backup plugin for WordPress. It backs up your database and files separately, lets you schedule automated backups, and connects to remote storage providers so your backups are stored off-site rather than on your server.

1. Go to Plugins → Add New in your WordPress dashboard, search for UpdraftPlus, and install and activate it.
2. Navigate to Settings → UpdraftPlus Backups.
3. Click the Settings tab. Set a schedule for Files backup schedule — weekly is suitable for most sites, daily for sites that update frequently.
4. Set the same or more frequent schedule for Database backup schedule. The database changes every time content is added or updated, so daily database backups are worth enabling even if file backups run weekly.
5. Under Choose your remote storage, select your preferred option — Google Drive, Dropbox, and Amazon S3 are all available in the free version. Follow the authentication steps to connect your account.
6. Set how many backups to retain. Two or three copies is enough for most sites. More copies means more storage usage.
7. Click Save Changes, then go back to the Backup / Restore tab and click Backup Now to run your first manual backup and confirm everything is working.

Where to Store Your Backups

Storing backups on the same server as your site defeats the purpose. If the server has a problem, you lose both your site and your backups. Always use remote storage.

The most practical free options are:

• Google Drive — straightforward to connect, generous free storage, and most people already have an account
• Dropbox — similar setup, works well for smaller sites
• Amazon S3 — more configuration required but scales well for larger sites or high backup frequency

For sites with a lot of media, check that your remote storage has enough space. A WordPress site with a large image library can produce backup archives of several gigabytes.

How to Restore a WordPress Backup

Restoring with UpdraftPlus is done from the same Settings → UpdraftPlus Backups screen.

1. Go to Settings → UpdraftPlus Backups → Backup / Restore.
2. Scroll down to Existing backups. Find the backup you want to restore from.
3. Click Restore next to the backup. Choose which components to restore — Plugins, Themes, Uploads, Others, and Database.
4. Click Restore again to confirm and let UpdraftPlus handle the process. It will download the backup files from remote storage and overwrite the current site.

If your site is completely inaccessible — the dashboard is down and you cannot log in — you will need to restore manually via FTP and phpMyAdmin, or ask your host to restore from their server-level backup. This is rare, but worth knowing as a fallback.

Backup Schedule Recommendations

How often you should back up depends on how often your site changes. A good starting framework:

• Static or low-traffic sites — weekly file backups, daily database backups
• Blogs or content sites updating a few times a week — daily database backups, weekly file backups
• WooCommerce or membership sites — daily or twice-daily database backups, daily file backups. Order data and user records change constantly.

For more detail on planning your backup cadence, see the guide on setting up a WordPress backup schedule. And once your site is live, pairing backups with uptime monitoring means you will know immediately if something goes wrong rather than finding out from a visitor.

Practical Tips

Always run a manual backup before making significant changes — updating WordPress core, switching themes, or installing a major plugin. The scheduled backup may have run three days ago, and that is three days of content and settings you could lose. Before any update, I run a quick manual backup via UpdraftPlus and confirm it completed before touching anything.

Test your restore process at least once. Most people set up backups and never verify they actually work until they need them urgently. Spin up a staging site or use a local environment and walk through a restore from a backup file. When updating WordPress core, themes, and plugins, a pre-update backup takes under a minute and removes the risk entirely.

Common Mistakes

• Storing backups only on the server — if the server goes down or the account is suspended, you lose everything. Always use remote storage.
• Backing up files but not the database — the database is where your content lives. A file-only backup will restore your theme and plugins but not your posts or settings.
• Never testing a restore — a backup that cannot be successfully restored is not useful. Verify yours works before you need it.
• Relying entirely on host backups — hosting backups are a safety net, not a strategy. Some hosts only keep 7 days of backups. Some charge to restore. Your own backups give you more control and more history.

When to Use This vs Alternatives

UpdraftPlus is the right choice for most WordPress sites. It is free, well-maintained, and handles the full backup and restore workflow without technical knowledge.

If you are running a larger or more complex site, BlogVault and WP Time Capsule are paid alternatives that offer incremental backups — only backing up what has changed since the last run — which is faster and uses less storage. Some managed hosting providers (Kinsta, WP Engine) include robust automated backups as part of their plans, which may reduce the need for a separate plugin entirely.

Backups are most valuable when they’re part of a broader routine. If you want to turn your backup schedule into a full WordPress maintenance plan — covering updates, security checks, and content reviews — the guide to creating a WordPress maintenance plan covers exactly how to structure that.

Conclusion

Install UpdraftPlus, connect remote storage, set a schedule, and run one manual backup to confirm it works. That is the entire setup. From that point on, your site is protected and recovery from most problems takes a few minutes rather than hours.