How to Backup WordPress Database Manually & With Plugins?

How to Backup WordPress Database Manually

Backup WordPress Database

 

Creating regular WordPress backups is the best thing you can do for your website security. Backups give you peace of mind and can save you in catastrophic situations such as when your site gets hacked or you accidentally lock yourself out. Taking a WordPress database backup manually is always a great thing to do.

If you haven’t backed up WordPress database yet, here is a complete guide that will describe when, how and why should one backup WordPress website Database.

It doesn’t matter whether your site is big or small, active or under development – backing up is a must! WordPress database backups can be taken in numerous ways, ranging from “highly-technical” to “supremely easy”. It will make sure you wont loose your site data after any hack attempt or malware infection such as WordPress hacked redirect , brute force attack, wordpress pharma hack or Japanese keyword hack . Backing up WP database will also help you out while removing malware from wordpress site.

Let’s walk through the ways with which you can backup WordPress database manually using phpMyadmin, cPanel & plugins.

⚡️Why Backup WordPress Database?

Regular WordPress backups are a vital part of every website’s security. As a WordPress user, you have to keep your data secure and ensure that your website is backed up so if anything happens, you can restore it to its normal state without data loss. Some very good reasons why you should need to backup your website are:

  • Getting Hacking
  • Server malfunction
  • Migrating to another server
  • WordPress Malware Attack
  • Uploading locally built website to server
  • Accidents leading to sudden data loss
  • Updates gone wrong.
  • You miss a bill or payment

Start making backups of your website to avoid such issues !!!.

Backup a WordPress site Database

WordPress database is the core of important and confidential stuff required to run your WordPress website. In general, WordPress database stores following information for your website:

  • Website Content
  • Comments
  • Widgets & sidebar content
  • Themes Settings
  • Plugins Settings
  • Layouts & templates (if you use a fancy drag-and-drop theme)
  • Cron schedules
  • And the most important, User accounts & Admin information

When a WordPress website is hacked, the admin loses the control to the admin area of the website. It’s database is the first target of every smart hacker to gain overall control of the website. That’s why it is recommended to first create the backup of your WordPress website.

Now the question arises

“Why make a wordpress website backup manually”?

Well..the answer is very clear. If you will lose the access to WordPress admin, you can’t access the plugin settings even. and it becomes impossible to restore it. Here the manual process of backing up WP database comes into action.

So, let’s take a look at how to make a WordPress Database backup manually?

Also ReadIs Your WordPress Hacked? Follow These Tips To Identify

Make Manual WordPress Backup

Common Database backups issues

WordPress backup plugins are often problematic because they fail to create backups that work. This is especially true for sites running large databases. The size of these backups can be so large that they fail halfway through the process. Even the most popular WordPress backup plugin, however, comes with its own share of problems:

  • Website recovery:
  • Unreliable initialization
  • Storage issues
  • Configuration issues:
  • Poor documentation and support:
  • Data corruption
  • Server load

 

⚡️ How To Backup WordPress Database Using phpMyAdmin

Manually the backup is created using an open source software, known as phpMyAdmin. It comes pre-installed on most of the WordPress hosting providers. This software helps to manage your MySql database using web interface.

Follow this step-to-step guide and you will successfully backup WordPress database phpMyAdmin.

1. Login to your WordPress Hosting Panel.

Login to your WordPress Hosting Panel.

2. Under Database Section, click on PhpMyAdmin. This will launch phpMyAdmin window.

3. Inside PhpMyAdmin, select your database.

PhpMyAdmin, select your database

 

4. When you click on your database, it will open up all the tables inside it.

WP DB-tables

5. You will see an option “Export” on the top menu bar. Simply Click on it. It will give you two options for exporting the files in the database:

Export

Backup WordPress Database using phpMyAdmin

  • Quick – which gives minimal options for extraction
  • Custom – gives all possible option to extract the database.

 export tables from WP database

Choose ‘Custom’ from the above two options.

6. Now, all the files will be auto-selected. You have to simply cross-check what files you need to extract.

7. Scroll down to the output section. PhpMyAdmin will give you “text” as default output option. You need to change it to ‘file’ as output. Further, you can also choose zipped or gzipped options for extracting files in compressed form.

8. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the GO button. phpmyadmin_wordpress_backup

9. PhpMyAdmin will send you the database export as zip or gzip file.

Also ReadExport WordPress Database Via PhpMyadmin

⚡️ How to Backup WordPress Database with cPanel?

In this section you will find various the steps for Backing Up WordPress site database using cPanel. Also see the video given below .

Backup WordPress Database cPanel

1. First, log in to your hosting panel.

2. Now, scroll down to the files section where you will find ‘Backup‘ button. Simply click on it.

backup database in cpanel

3. The backup button will take you to the Backups page where you will see different backup options.

4. Select partial backups section,

5. From there, an option ‘Download an MYSQL database backup‘ will show you all the databases in a drop-down manner.

 backup database cpanel wordpress

4. Select database and initiate the downloading process.

5. Once the database backup file is downloaded, you will get a popup for a successful download.

You can also use the cPanel method to download WordPress files.

Note: In most cases, the hosting companies keep automatic backups for every WordPress website they provide service for. If your hosting provider is also assisting you with the backup benefits, make sure the backup is created on a separate server. If your hosting provider is backing up on the same server and, your site server is hacked, they will not survive.

⚡️ How to Back Up WordPress With Plugin?

Another way to backup your WordPress database is to use backup Plugins. There are several plugins that not only helps in creating a backup but also, to restore WordPress Database. If you didn’t hear about them, here are the five best WordPress plugins that you can install and easily create the backup of your WordPress site database:

Many WordPress hosting providers offer limited backup services, but please remember that it is your responsibility to backup your website on your own. Do not rely solely on your hosting provider for backups.

Also Read33 Best Free WordPress Security Plugins in 2024 [Updated List]

?Best WordPress Database Backup Plugins 2024

If you are not already backing up your site, then you should pick one of these best WordPress backup plugins and start using it right away.

WP-DB-Backup:On Demand WordPress Backup

WP-DB-Backup:On Demand WordPress Backup

With more than 400,000 active installs, WP-DB-Backup is one of the most popular WordPress backup plugins. It is the best WordPress plugin that backups your WordPress database. WP-DB-Backup makes it really simple to create database backups, schedule automated backups, and restore your database. It is also a very useful tool for users who do not have access to phpMyAdmin to backup WordPress database manually.

Duplicator – WordPress Migration & Backup Plugin:

Duplicator - WordPress Migration & Backup Plugin

Duplicator is a popular WordPress plugin that automatically duplicated & backups WordPress. This plugin has been installed more than half a million times and currently enjoys a 4.9 star rating.

This plugin gives you the opportunity to migrate, copy, or clone your entire site from one location to another, which is a great solution if you’re looking for complete redundancy

The plugin is available with different yearly plans and you can use it for even use it on multiple websites, provided you mention them in your plan. You can also use it for migrating as well as restoring purposes.

UpDraftPlusBackup, Restore and Migration WordPress plugin

UpDraftPlus: Backup, Restore and Migration WordPress plugin

UpDraftPlus is another popular WordPress Plugin that allows you to create a complete backup of your entire WordPress site. You can store it in the cloud or otherwise, it also provides an option to download it on your system.

UpDraftPlus supports scheduled as well as on-demand backup options. So, you can backup your database, whenever required. The plugin is available in a premium version with additional features.

BackWPUp:

 backwpup-backup, restore WordPress plugin

If you are looking for cost-free choices, BackWPUp is the perfect plugin for you. BackWPUp is a completely free plugin that allows creating back up for entire WordPress site, either on daily bases or scheduled plans. You can also store them in the cloud, and even schedule to do this automatically.

BackUpWordPress:

Best plugins for backing up WordPress site

BackUp WordPress is one of the best plugins for backing up WordPress site including WordPress database, all media files and other data based on the schedule that suits you.

This plugin is very simple to use and supports multiple scheduling options. You can easily install BackUp WordPress and use it for faster backups.

If you are looking for ways for backing up your WordPress database without relying on plugins or manual job, you can take our help. We have a team of dedicated professionals who deal with a number of WordPress infections.

Also ReadHow To Fix “This Account Has Been Suspended” Error On WordPress Site?

Restore WordPress Site Database Backup

How to Restore WordPress Site from Backup Manually?

We strictly recommend our users to keep the backup of your WordPress database on a regular basis and we do so to prevent any kind of loss of data on your WordPress website.

But do you know how to restore a WordPress site with just a database backup? Although a complete restore is not possible, still we will show you how to minimize the loss.

Steps to Restore WordPress Site from Backup:

How-to-restore-wordpress-from-backup

  1. Log in to your cPanel account.
  2. From the database section, Click on MYSQL database.
  3. Provide a name for your database and select ‘Create‘ button.
  4. Now that you have created a database, the next step is to add a new user who will be authorized with all the privileges to use your newly created database. So, if you will scroll down to the page, you will see an option ‘MYSQL Users‘. On selecting, it will show you an option to ‘Add a New User‘.
  5. Enter a username and password for new database user >> click on the create user button.
  6. Now when you have an entirely fresh database and a new user, you need to add the user to the database in order to assign the privileges. So, scroll down to option ‘Add User to Database‘.
  7. Enter the info i.e. the user and the database to which you want to add him. Then, click on ‘Add‘ button.
  8. Now let’s start the importing process. From the cPanel dashboard, choose phpMyAdmin. From there, choose the new database you created recently.
  9. When you open the database, on the top menu bar, you will see an option ‘Import’.
  10. After selecting Import, you will be asked to choose File. Browse the backup file from your computer and upload it.
  11. Once the import job is finished, you will get a success message.

Want Reliable & Secure WordPress Site Backup Solution

Thinking how frequent would you require creating backup of your WordPress database? Well, every time you update your website, you will need to repeat the complete process. So, it all depends on how frequent you update your website’s content. Using a backup service is the easiest & cost effective way to keep backups of your site. WP Hacked Help is a subscription-based WordPress security and backup service for WordPress blogs and sites. We perform backup and restore WordPress websites seamlessly and without much effort at all.  Additionally, we make sure your website is protected from all types of WordPress vulnerabilities.

24/7 WP Security & Malware Removal
Is your site hacked or infected with malware? Let us get it fixed for you
Secure My Website(s)