Do you want to know how to backup WordPress database manually? It will help you to quickly create a database backup whenever you need it.
In this article, I will show you how to backup WordPress database manually.
Why make a Backup WordPress Database
Every website owner should always install and set up a WordPress backup system for his site. This backup will allows you to restore your site should something go wrong.
After hacking your site, many users lose access to their WordPress admin area.
when you lose access to the admin areas, it would be hard for you to use a plugin for backups.
A manual database backup is just the same thing as the database backup created by a backup plugin.
What exactly does the database backup contain?
WordPress is made with a content management system (CMS). It contains a lot of critically important data. If you have used phpMyAdmin, then you already know that your website’s content is stored in the database.
WordPress Database content:
- All your blog posts
- Pages of your website
- Comments on your website
- User accounts
- Widgets and sidebar content
- Navigation menus
- Theme settings
- Plugin settings
- Templates and layouts for theme builders
- Schedules
That’s all are very important data that you should never want to lose. These are all important.
Let’s take a look at how to Backup WordPress Database Manually
Backup WordPress Database Manually Using phpMyAdmin
For this method, we will use the WordPress hosting server’s cPanel dashboard. Just login to your cPanel dashboard.
Here we will use phpMyAdmin. It is open-source software, which allows you to manage your MySQL database.
For backup WordPress database, navigate to the phpMyAdmin under the database section.
This will launch the PHPMyAdmin window. Here you will see the list of WordPress database tables when it is selected.
Select the database name, which you want to backup. Once your database is selected, click on the Export link from the top menu bar.
Here you will be asked to select the export method. I recommended, keep the default Quick method if you want to take a full database backup.
If you want to choose which tables to export, you can select Custom, it will give you more options to explore.
It also will show all your tables in your WordPress database as selected. If there are any tables that you would like to exclude from export, you can deselect them.
Scroll down to the output section. By default, phpMyAdmin will show you the output of the export process as text.
You need to change that by selecting the ‘Save output to a file’ option. For compression, you need to select the zipped option.
Then you need to scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the ‘Go’ button.
Once this process will be finished, phpMyAdmin will now send you a successful notification.
Finally, you have successfully make a backup WordPress database manually.
Backup WordPress Database Using cPanel
Good hosting companies offer easier ways to download on-demand backups.
Here you can learn how to make a backup WordPress database using cPanel.
Just login to your hosting control panel and scroll down to the files section where you will see the Backup button.
On the backup page, scroll down to the partial backup section and click on your database name to download your database backup file.
If you need you can also download your WordPress files from this page.
Keep in mind that it is not an alternative to a proper backup for your WordPress site. If your hosting server crashes, then you will lose all your backups and your original website at the same time.
All in all, a manual backup has no guarantees. I recommend that you use a backup plugin to backup your website instead.
Backup WordPress Database Using Plugin
Backup your website using a plugin in one of the easiest and simplest ways. Using a WordPress backup plugin presents the easiest way to ensure that your website can be restored.
Here is a checklist of backup plugins:
There are several free plugins available that can help you to backup WordPress database. To give you an example of how this works, I will use the UpdraftPlus WordPress backup plugin.
To install this plugin go to your WordPress dashboard, click on the plugin section, and select Add new button. Search for UpdraftPlus, you can see this plugin. Click on installed and activated the plugin, you’ll be prompted to go through several setup steps:
To set up your backup plugin go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to the setting button.
Click on the UpdraftPlus Backups, this will launch you the UpdraftPlus settings page and create your first backup.
You can use the tabs to create automated backups and connect to many different cloud storage options to save your backup files.
Using a backup plugin can save you a lot of time and build in an extra sense of security. If your site crashes, hacked or has an unrecoverable issue, then you can restore your site easily.
Backup WordPress Database Using Web Host
Many web hosting servers provide regular backup services for MySQL databases. The host server will take “snapshots” of your database at specific intervals-hourly, daily, and weekly.
Your host server may provide web-based access to download the “snapshots” of your database.
Some hosts provide the backup service for free and others have a monthly fee. The cost and process for setting up automated backups are different for every host.
Common problems with taking database backups
A manually Backup WordPress database is not a better option.
Here are some checklist common problems of database backup:
- Website recovery: It is incredibly difficult to restore a site from a SQL file.
- Data corruption: Many backups fail to restore a website because the data was corrupted.
- Configuration issues: Using a plugin for a backup WordPress database is incredibly complicated to set up or use.
You may surprise that these are very common problems and they happen to everyone.
Conclusion
That’s all, I hope this article helped you learn how to make a backup WordPress database manually. You may want to see the guide on how to restore the WordPress database manually.
You may also want to see another guide on How to fix Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress, How to Fix “Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance” Error in WordPress, and How to Fix 500 Internal Server Error in Your WordPress
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