Databases

If your hosting account has any databases, back them up first. This puts copies of your databases in a directory called _db_backups so you can download them later.

For more information, see the Backing up a MySQL or MSSQL Database section of Backing up and Restoring MySQL or MSSQL Databases.

Your Website

The easiest way to back up your website is with a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) client. This lets you connect your local computer to your hosting account and move files between them. To back up your website, you'll just copy all of the files from your hosting account to your local computer.

We recommend using FileZilla. For more information, see Connecting to Your Hosting Account with FileZilla (FTP).

It's a good idea to keep these backups in a unique folder on your computer called something like website backups. In that folder, create another folder with the date you created the backup, e.g. feb2013 — put all of your files in here. This way, you can easily figure out when you created each backup in case you need to use one.

cPanel offers manually-generated backups to let you keep copies of your website's files. You can also use most of these backups as restores, returning your account's files to previous versions of themselves.

cPanel's backups are not portable to other hosting platforms.

To Backup Your cPanel Shared Hosting Account

1. Log in to your Account Manager.
2. Click Web Hosting.
3. Next to the account you want to use, click Launch.
4. In the Files section, click Backups.
5. Click the type of backup you want to create:
   • Download or Generate a Full Website Backup — Create a backup of everything on your hosting account to store locally. You can open the TAR file it creates to extract individual files from it.

     You cannot restore your website using a Full Website Backup file.

   • Home Directory — Download a backup of all the files stored on your hosting account, including your domain names' email addresses and their emails.
   • MySQL Database Backups — Download a backup of an individual MySQL database.
   • Email Forwarders & Email Filters — Download a backup of either your your email forwarders or filters.

You can use the backup files for any of the Partial Backups as a restore, by uploading the backup file from your local machine, and then clicking Restore.

After creating a backup, you can also download it.

Plesk lets you create backups for your hosting account and your databases separately. You can use these backups as restores, returning your account's files to previous versions of themselves.

Plesk's backups are not portable to other hosting platforms.

To Back Up Your Plesk Shared Hosting Account

1. Log in to your Account Manager.
2. Click Web Hosting.
3. Next to the account you want to use, click Launch.
4. Click Backup Manager.
5. Click the option you want to use:
   • Back Up creates a backup of your hosting account's files right now.^{1, 2}
   • Scheduled Back Up Settings automates backups at a specific time for you.^{1, 2}
   • Database Backup Repository lets you create database backups and use them as restores for your account's databases.³

To use your hosting account backups as restores, click the backup's link in the Name column.

Notes

¹ The backups our accounts generate do not include either Mail or Databases. Selecting these options during a restore has no effect.

² Do not use your own hosting account as an FTP backup repository. If you do not have a separate FTP space to store backups, just use the Server Repository

³ You can only use database backups that were created by your account. You cannot use a backup created by another account, whether it was hosted with us or another company.

After creating a backup, you can also download it.

Unlike our other hosting accounts, Managed WordPress keeps 30 days' worth of backups for you automatically.

If you want to use on of your backups to restore your Website, see Restoring Your Managed WordPress Website.