Backing up a wordpress installation can be easy or it can be challenging. After reading this tutorial, if I’ve done a my job, you should think its an easy process. I will be going in depth for those of you who are totally new to wordpress and don’t understand the concept of plugins and how to install and activate plugins. To completely backup your wordpress installation you will learn how to backup the database, then backup all your wordpress files. If this tutorial helps you out, please comment below and show some love.

Go to the plugin tab and search for “wp backup”

Next click on “install Now” button beside wp backup

Confirm that you in fact do want to install this plugin. Click OK

Next You will now see the plugin installing

After the wp backup plugin is installed, it will ask you if you want to activate it. Click activate plugin. The plugin is now active and ready to use.

Click on the tools menu and you will see backup

Click on the backup button and you will see the options of the backup plugin.

This part is simple, scroll down about half way and you will see, backup options. Select download to your computer and click on the back up button.

Now save the database file to your computer

I suggest creating a folder titled “WEBSITE BACKUP FOLDER – DATE” and then saving the database backup file into that folder.

Next we make a backup of all of our wordpress files

To complete this step you will need the folowing infromation.
1. Download An FTP program such as Filezilla
2. your user credentials to access your website files via FTP.
If you don’t know your FTP credentials contact your web host and they will help you out with step 2.

Next we make a backup of all of our wordpress files

Configure your FTP program with your hostname, username and password, then click connect.

Copy your site to your “WEBSITE BACKUP FOLDER”

FTP is simple, everything on the left side of the screen is your local computer, everything on the right is files on your server. In the left pannel navigate to your “WEBSIte BACKUP FOLDER” then in the right panel select all the file by clicking on one file then pressing the CTRL A button on your keyboard this will select all the files on the sever side. Next right click on the server side, you will see DOWNLOAD.. Thats it click it and sit back and watch all your files copy. This could take from 5 minutes to more than an hour. It all depends on how many files you have on your server. If your blog is packed with tons of images, it will take longer.

I hope this tutorial has been educational for you. If it has helped you learn how to backup your wordpress website, please share it with others. Feel free to comment below.