Restoring a manual WordPress Backup

If you have a backup of the website with the necessary files and database then you can also restore it yourself. In this article, we give the example of a WordPress website without using Plugins. So if you have followed the manual steps in How do I backup my WordPress website, then you can use this article to restore it on our web hosting servers.

We are assuming that you have all the source files (.zip or .tar) and database (.sql). If you prefer to use a WordPress Migration tool, you can look at Duplicator (Pro), All-in-One WP Migration or Updraft Plus, for example. And please also refer to their documentation and forums for help.

Login on Plesk Control Panel

  1. In My Cloud86 (link), click in the left menu on My Services.
  2. Click the 3 dots behind the web hosting package you want to see in Plesk and click View Details.
  3. Under the heading Manage Webhosting (middle of the page), click on Websites & Domains.
  4. You will now be automatically logged into the Plesk Control Panel.

For the full manual with images, follow Login to Plesk

Manual WordPress backup restore

A WordPress website consists of files stored in Plesk -> files, and a database found in Plesk -> Databases. To backup, we need to secure both parts. We'll start with the files first and then we'll show you how to restore the database.

WordPress files

  1. In Plesk, in the left menu click on Websites & Domains and go to the (sub)domain you want to restore a backup of and click on files. Is the domain/subdomain not present yet? Create it first, see Plesk: Adding extra domain (website).
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  2. In the overview, delete all the files present (put a check mark next to Name) and click Delete.
  3. And then upload the file from the backup by clicking + and Upload File.
  4. Click on the zip file and then click Extract File and click OK. Depending on the size, this may take quite some time. Note: It is very important to wait until the unpacking is completely finished. We recommend waiting on this screen until it finishes and the following message appears
  5. You can now delete the zip file by checking the box and clicking Delete. If you don't do this, other people can download the website and it will take up extra space on your web hosting.

Is your website too big for a zip file? Then you can also upload these files via FTP, see FTP: Guide.

WordPress Database

  1. In the File Manager of the WordPress website there is a file wp-config.php, click on it to view it and in the Code Editor note the database name, user and password. These are the values that appear after DB_NAME, DB_USER and DB_PASSWORD.
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  2. In the left menu, click Databases and click Add Database.
  3. Enter here the value you noted in step 1 and also which site it is related to. This does not affect the database, but does help indicate what the database is for. Once you have entered everything click OK.
  4. At the newly created database, click phpMyAdmin.
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  5. In the new tab, click Import at the top, Choose File, and then without further changes, click the Import button at the bottom.

At this point, you have restored the files and database needed for your WordPress website. You can now test if the website is there and fix any problems on the website.


If you need some help, you can always reach our support desk by email support@cloud86.io and on weekdays from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm you can also reach us by phone and via the chat in My Cloud86.