How to backup your WordPress blog database

Nov 23, 2006

If you are using WordPress as your blog publishing tool then you must know that it uses MySQL as your backend database to store all your content and other settings. Since most of us host our blogs on 3rd-party servers, it is very crucial that we take the regular backup of the database. But then, taking backup of your data should anyway be an important part of your data maintenance even if that data is on your own PC. Some people have been blogging for years, and all their posts are there on some remote server, on some alien land.

How often should you backup your database?

Depends on the frequency of your posts. If you post 3-4 posts everyday as I do, you should take backup everyday because even if you lose data of say, 5 days, you’ll be losing 15-20 of your posts. Since you spend so much time reading, researching and then publishing your posts, I think 20 posts lost means lots of time gone down the drain. If you publish one post daily, weekly or monthly, then it’s better to take the backup after every post because then even if you lose your database, you’ve got all the posts with you.

Taking the backup of your WordPress blog database

It’s very easy to take the backup and it only take less than 5 minutes to take the backup of your WordPress blog database. Although I use the plugin that comes with WordPress these days, there is another method I’m aware of and I’ll explain that too.

Using the WordPress backup plugin: Go to your WordPress installation control panel. Click Manage and then in the submenu click Backup. This page lists all your WordPress installation tables and gives you the option of saving the backup on the (i) server itself, (ii) on your computer, (iii) to your email account. The preferred options are either your computer or your email address. I sometimes take the backup and get it emailed to my Gmail account. Do not Refresh your web page or click the Stop button of your browser while the backup procedure is going on. That’s it. You don’t have to do anything else.
And as Sarah mentions it in the comment below and on her blog there is another plugin called WP-cron that automatically takes your WP backup and emails it to you everyday.
Using phpmyadmin to take WordPress database backup: This can be a bit taxing if you’re not familiar with how MySQL databases are organized and how phpmyadmin is used to maintain the MySQL database. Most of them time, through your web hosting control panel account you can go to your phpmyadmin section. You can read this tutorial for more.

In a couple of days I’ll write about how you can restore your database from your backup file.

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2 Responses to “How to backup your WordPress blog database”

Sarah
November 28th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
Have you tried the WP-cron plugin in conjunction with the backup plugin? I’ve been really happy with the automation. I wrote about it in the post I’ve listed as my URL. It’s save me a couple of times now!
Amrit
November 29th, 2006 at 5:43 am
Hi Sarah.
Thanks for dropping by and mentioning the WP-cron plugin. Sure it will be very convenient if the backup is emailed daily on its own. I’ll install and activate the plugin right now.