How to make a site backup with Duplicator Pro

Creating a backup for your website is a basic activity that you should implement to protect the data of your website and therefore of your business. Especially if your business is all digital, having a backup of your website is a fundamental step.

Download the Duplicator plugin

Duplicator is available both in a free version, which can be easily installed from the WordPress control panel, and in a Pro version with more functions for site backup and migration. Our advice is to evaluate the purchase of the Pro version, as it provides a series of additional useful features to guarantee you greater security in creating your backup.

To download the free version of Duplicator, go to the Plugins section of your site created with WordPress and click on "add” and search “duplicator”. Click on Install and then up Activate. The plugin will automatically be active with the basic functions at your disposal. If you want to download the Pro version of Duplicator, follow the same steps above and click on the item "Go Pro!” in the Duplicator menu or visit the plugin site to purchase the license.

The Pro version adds the following features to the plugin:

• Scheduling backups: by paying for the Pro version you can decide to have an always updated backup based on your preferred cadence, for example schedule backups daily, weekly or monthly.
• Possibility of archiving the backup on specific external servers: you can decide to save your backup on external servers saving space on your local disk, for example you can save the backup in the Cloud or on services such as Dropbox, Google Drive and Amazon S3;
• Advanced support for very large sites and databases;
• Backup creation for Multisite;
• Email notifications;
• File filter to include/exclude from backup;
• Search and replace terms in the database;
• Advanced assistance.

The Pro version is available in 4 different packages according to your and your company's needs. You can choose a basic package that provides you with 1 year of support and up to 3 licenses or an advanced package that allows you to pay for the one-time license and get unlimited licenses. Generally, if you have only one site the basic package is the cheapest and most efficient solution, but if you have a very large business you may need a higher number of licenses.

Create your backup

To create your first backup click on the submenu “Packages” and from this section you can easily create a new backup by clicking on the “Create new”. Afterwards, a window will open, where you can choose which files of your site will be saved by the backup procedure.

If you leave the basic settings, all files will be affected by the backup, otherwise, you can change the configuration by opening the various sections:

• Storage it is useful for choosing whether to save the backup on an external storage service (Pro feature);
• Archive it is the useful section where you can choose whether to save all the files or exclude certain files or database tables from being saved;
• Installers allows you to protect the backup with a password and enter your database access data.

Once the configuration is complete, the Duplicator Pro plugin will scan your site and in case of errors, they will be immediately reported to you. It is very important that in the scan results window, the items under "Configuration and Archive” are all marked with the status “Good" green in color. Often there are small problems that lead to some warnings, but in most cases you can safely go ahead with the backup.

Files that include special characters in their names are specified for name checking. Some hostings may have problems with these characters, therefore, to be safe, we suggest you simply rename them avoiding the use of symbols or accented vowels.

As for the backup size, it's just a reminder of the size of your backup, so you can plan how much space you need for your backup.

Save your data

After making sure that everything is correct, activate the box "Yup”, continue with the compilation process and click on the “Fill out”. This box will not appear if the scan has not found any errors or warnings, so you can go ahead by clicking on "Fill out”.

From this moment, the plugin will start save your data. Once this process is completed, which can take a few minutes, you will see a window where you can choose whether to download the "Installers” or you can click on “Archive” to download an archive file that will allow you to create a restore point.

To save the backup click on “Archive” and thus you will complete the backup process, saving a file that contains all the precious content of your site and which will allow you, if necessary, to restore your website. Having the paid version available, you can select an external location for the saving the backup file (e.g. Dropbox, Amazon, Google, etc.).

Remember that with this procedure, you are manually creating a backup of your website, but with Duplicator Pro it is possible to create a automatic backup system which allows you to set up a flow of automatic backups on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.