Backup Manager

A backup is only worth what you can restore from it. Most WordPress sites have something that calls itself a backup — a host snapshot, a plugin running nightly, a folder someone downloaded once — and almost none of them have been tested. The gap between having a copy and being able to put a site back is where the real risk sits.

These guides cover both halves. On the backup side: what actually needs copying, how files and the database differ and why taking one without the other leaves you stranded, where copies should live so a hosting failure cannot take the original and the backup together, and how often is often enough for a site that changes daily versus one that changes twice a year.

On the recovery side: restoring when the dashboard still works, and restoring when it does not. Migrations belong here too, because moving a site is a restore onto different hardware, with the same failure modes plus DNS.

There is also a set of articles on what goes wrong mid-operation — a backup that stalls at ninety percent, an archive too large for the transfer, a disk that fills before the job finishes, a restore that leaves half the tables in place. These are ordinary and recoverable, but only if you know which stage failed.

If you are new to this, start with the complete backup and restore guide, then read the article on verifying a backup. Verification is the step most people skip.