Backup your WordPress database with WP-DB-Backup

One of the most important things you can do for your WordPress blog is perform regular backups.  Without backups your entire blog might be lost if your web host has a server problem or if a hacker gets access to your blog and trashes it.

There are two things to consider when backing up your WordPress blog:

1. Files – these are the WordPress core files and any plugins and themes you have installed.  Since you can always download WordPress and the themes and plugins again the only things you really need to worry about are any customised core files and your wp-content/uploads directory.  These can be backed up easily using your FTP client to download the files.
2. Database – WordPress stores all of your blog settings and content in database tables.  These are a little harder to backup because you can’t just download a few files with an FTP client.  Some people use phpMyAdmin or other tools provided by their web host to make database backups.  I prefer to use a plugin to automate it.

How to use WP-DB-Backup to protect your WordPress database

WordPress 2.7 makes plugin installation a breeze.  In the left hand sidebar of your WordPress dashboard click on Plugins and then Add New.

The Install Plugins page is displayed.  Enter “db backup” in the search field and click Search.

WP-DB-Backup appears in the list of search results.  Click the Install link to install the plugin.

Note: if for any reason the automatic installation fails you can install it the old fashioned way by downloading the plugin here, unzip it, then upload it to your wp-content/plugins directory using an FTP client.

Once the plugin has been installed click on Plugins in the left hand sidebar of your Dashboard.  The Manage Plugins page is displayed.  Scroll to the bottom where the Inactive Plugins are listed.  Click the Activate link for the WP-DB-Backup plugin.

Now that the plugin is activated it is time to use it.  In the left hand sidebar click on Tools and then Backup.

Scroll down to Scheduled Backup.  I like to run a backup once per week and have it sent to my email address for safe keeping.

By default only the core WordPress database tables are backed up but you can include any additional database tables that you want in the backup as well.  I like to backup the tables for the In Series plugin so my post series are not broken if I have to restore my blog.  Just be careful if you backup tables for any statistics plugins that might store a lot of data in their tables as these may cause the backups to be very large.