WordPress backup with cPanel is the first of a series of posts to explore various methods to backup your website.

Why Consider WordPress Backups with cPanel?

cPanel is a very popular hosting hosting control panel, and has tools that built that can be used to backup our website. It's also free and doesn't require installing extra plugins or paying for outside services. There are other methods we can use for WordPress backups, including FTP or a specific backup plugin but today we'll do our WordPress Backup with cPanel.

Pros and Cons of WordPress Backups with cPanel

Pros

1. It's free as we're using tools that come with our cPanel hosting account.
2. No extra plugins required to be installed on our WordPress website.
3. It's relatively easy to do.
4. It's fast and reliable.

Cons

1. The biggest negative is that it's not automated e.g. daily, weekly or monthly automated backups. You'll need to login to your cPanel and perform the backup manually at intervals you deem appropriate.
2. Restoring your website from these backups, although easy to do, is also not one click but will require a similar process as the backup.

Let's get started with our cPanel backup of our WordPress website:

There are two parts when doing a WordPress backup with cPanel. First we backup website files and second we backup the database.

Step 1 - Backup Website Files

1 - Login to cPanel

Login to your cPanel hosting account and click the Files > File Manager icon.

2 - Find your WordPress Website Files

Once in the File Manager click the public_html link to open that folder. Your WordPress website is stored in this folder.

3 - Select your WordPress Website Files

Select your WordPress files starting with the wp-admin folder and select all the other folders and files. To select multiple files on a PC use the "Shift" key while clicking the wp-admin folder and keep holding the shift key while clicking the very last file in the folder. This will select all files.

Note: In this case I'm not selecting the "cgi-bin" folder as it's not part of my WordPress installation but the cPanel hosting account folder.

4 - Compress your Website Files

Now I'll zip the WordPress website files into one folder to reduce the size. Having all website files in one folder makes downloading quicker, storing and/or restoring easier.

To compress (zip) the website files right click in the right pane in the blue selected area and click the Compress link. Select your type of backup, I'll use the "Zip Archive" option and then click "Compress Files" to proceed.

Your files are now compressed into a single folder and stored in this directory, ready for downloading to your computer (and/or leaving in your hosting account as a backup). Once the compression is completed click the "Close" button on the Compression Results dialog box.

5 - Download your Website Files

There will now be a "wp-admin.zip" file in your public_html folder. These are your compress website files, ready for download.

Right click on wp-admin.zip > Download and download the file to your computer.

Note: To save disk space on your web hosting account, I recommend deleting the zipped file once you've downloaded the backup to your desktop. To delete the file right click on the file and click "Delete".

Step 2 - Backup Database

1 - In cPanel find your Database

In your cPanel control panel homepage find the "Databases" section and click "phpMyAdmin".

Once in phpMyAdmin find your database and click on the link.

2 - Export your WordPress Database

Your database will open, click the "Export" link at the top.

Your export options will be "Quick" or "Custom", I recommend "Custom". Then select the "Compression" type as "Zipped". You may ignore all the other settings on the page.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the "Go" button. Your database will now be zipped and once completed, automatically downloaded to your computer.

Note: for larger databases this may take a few minutes to complete.

And that's it, you've now backed up your WordPress files and WordPress database in cPanel, and downloaded both to your computer.

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