How to backup the WordPress Database

Tags: backup, database, wordpress plugin Categories: Wordpress

The database of your blog is one of the most important things to remember to backup from now and then. The database contains your posts and links to the images/videos and other things (non text) that your post contains. Without it there’s no way you could restore your blog after a crash/hack or natural event, even if you have all your site files from FTP. A blog can work without media files in your posts but won’t display anything without a database.

That’s why it’s important to backup the blog’s database, but usually people don’t do that because they’re lazy or don’t remember to do so. Don’t despair, as there are plugins that can do the job for you. In this post I’m going to show you the most popular database backup plugin for Wordress (the most used blogging platform), named WordPress Database Backup.

How to use WordPress Database Backup

The plugin installs like any other WordPress plugin: copy the directory in the archive to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder on server, activate it in WordPress Admin and the configure it in the Tools – Backup section.

You have the options to select which supplemental database tables to be stored in the backup file, besides the default ones and the backup destination: server, computer or email address. Those are the options for manual backup. There’s also an option for automated backup where you specify an email address, the tables to be stored and the periodicity of the WordPress Database Backup.