1. Helpcenter - Cloud86
  2. Plesk: Control Panel
  3. Backups

How do I backup my WordPress website?

Just before you want to perform a (major) update to your website, it is often wise to make a backup. If after the changes your website appears to be in order, you can remove the backup to save disk space. We make a daily backup of all your email, websites and databases and keep it for you for 7 days. But sometimes you may want to make a backup of your WordPress website just before an update.

In this article, we explain 2 ways to backup a WordPress site. The first option is through Plesk, this gives you a copy of the site that can be restored through the Plesk Control Panel. The second option describes how to create a manual backup. You can also download the manual backup yourself, giving you a backup that does not rely on our server.

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

WordPress site backup via Plesk

  1. In Plesk, in the right menu click on Backup & Restore.
    Plesk: Backup & Restore (EN).png
  2. In the new window, click on the Back up button.
  3. Click OK to backup the entire host, including all Websites.

To restore this backup, see Restoring Backup via Plesk.

WordPress manual site backup

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 backup the database.

WordPress files

  1. In Plesk, click on Websites & Domains in the left menu and go to the (sub)domain you want to back up and click Files.
  2. In the overview, select all files (put check mark next to Name) and click Archive and Add to Archive.
  3. Enter a clear name for the archive, such as the website name and day of the backup, and click OK.
  4. A pop-up window will become visible, this window will close once the zip file is complete, depending on the size of the WordPress website this will take some time.
  5. Once the zip file creation is complete you can click on the hamburger icon (3 dashes) behind the zip file (cloud86examplce.com.zip in our example) and then click Download.
  6. After downloading, we recommend deleting the .zip file, this is because otherwise people may download the entire website and to save space on your web hosting.

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

WordPress Database

  1. In the File Manager of the WordPress website there is a file wp-config.php, click on this to view it. In the Code Editor you will find the database name, this is the value listed after define( 'DB_NAME', in our example this is wp_iwzlg. You will need this value in step 2.
    Plesk: Files, wp-config, Code-editor (NL).png
  2. In the left menu, click Databases and look for the database with the same name you noted in step 1. In our example, this is wp_iwzlg. At that database, click phpMyAdmin.
  3. In the new tab, click Export at the top and then the Export button.

The WordPress files and sql database are now downloaded to the computer on which you performed these actions. By default, these two files, a .zip and a .sql are found in the download folder.

Would you like to restore the WordPress website to a (different) Web Hosting Package with us? Use the manual: Restoring a manual WordPress Backup.

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.