Backup/Restore

Backing up your WordPress database site is pretty simple. It is a separate procedure performed outside of WordPress itself.

What you’ll need to know

You’ll need to know the “cPanel” username and password. If you don’t have this, contact Jim or Mary Anne. cPanel is your behind-the-scenes site management tool. And you’ll need to know how to make a new folder on your computer and find it again once you’ve made it! Organization is important here.

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cPanel is accessed via your web browser by typing in your website name followed by a / and the word cpanel (i.e., www.graydogweb.com/cpanel). Hit enter and a dialog box will appear and ask you for your username and password. Enter these and select “OK.” You’ll see something like this on your screen:

Notice the area with the red rectangle around it. This is the “Backup Wizard” and it’s icon looks like this: wizard.jpg

To start your backup, simply click on the Backup Wizard and follow the easy backup steps!

  1. Select Backup
  2. Select MySQL Databases
  3. Click on the name of your database
  4. Choose to Save to Disk and click on enter. The file will name itself and quickly download to where you chose to save it. To keep things simple, you can simply let the file overwrite itself each time you perform a backup.

Screen shots of the four steps are shown below. You can click on each one to see a full-size image.

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Restoring Your WordPress Database Files

Restore your files by clicking on the Backup Wizard in cPanel. Only this time, you’ll:

  1. Select Restore
  2. Select MySQL Databases
  3. Here is where you need to know where you downloaded your file. Browse on your computer and find the file.
  4. Once the file is located, choose Upload and the backup file is automatically uploaded and restored. You’ll see a lot of text come up in a new browser window as the file is uploaded and restored. Give it a few minutes to make sure it has completed the restore and check your site to see that it is up and running properly.

Again, here are some screen shots of what you’ll see as you go through the Restore procedure:

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