Effective Ways of Keeping a Backup of Your Database

WordPress is a web-based application used for publishing sites or blogs. The plugins, themes, and templates can easily be accessed for the requirement of your blog or site. As it is hosted through the web server, all the data gets stored in the database. Therefore it is necessary to maintain a backup of the important files. Now, let us check out the different ways by which you can keep the back up:

Use WordPress Plug-In: The whole database can be stored very securely with the help of the WordPress plug-in. The name of one of the popular plug-ins is WP-DBManager. Besides the backup function, it has other different features that will help you in repairing and optimizing the pages.

Export From WordPress Panel: You can log in through the interface and go to the ‘Tools’ section. There you can find an ‘Export’ tab; you can select and download the XML file. This particular file will include all the contents that are uploaded with the platform containing the comments, posts, pages custom fields, tags, pages , categories etc. In case of emergency, when you have lost the files from the WordPress, you can easily import the XML backup and everything will be same as the previous situation.

Back-Up Through Control Panel: The hosting providers generally use the control panel as the interface. There are some providers who use the custom interface for doing backup activities. You can simply log in to the hosting account and can select “Manage Account”. After that you can click on the database icon and choose MySQL. It will show you the details and allow you to modify them. There is a particular option that helps you in keeping the backup and restores all your existing files.

Use phpMyAdmin Section:  Your web host account may include the phpMyAdmin section. Though many people may consider this process as more technical method, this method is simply a short cut one used by the experts. You can just choose ‘Open Manager’ and you will be redirected to the page. You can login to the database you wish to export and then finally select the SQL file.

Scheduled or Immediate: You have generally two options for backup. Immediate backup or the scheduled backup can be taken. If you are inserting content in your blog on a daily basis, then the backup should be scheduled once daily, once hourly etc.  When you are adding content for once a week, a weekly backup system will suffice your needs. You can set up a separate Gmail account where you can receive all the backup mails. If too much of mails create irritation, you can schedule your backup by typing your email address in the section provided and by selecting the option of ‘schedule backup’. If you want to run an immediate backup, you can select your Email backup by selecting ‘Backup Now’.

Backup Themes and Plug-ins: Yes, you need to keep the back up of the themes and plug-ins.  All the data will be located in the wp_content folder. You can create the folder particularly for the backup files within your system. The folders can be named as WPbackup and can be saved in the documents library or wherever you want. By using the FTP, you can easily browse within your blog files and can finally locate a folder called wp_content. This folder can be dragged to the new backup folder in your computer. This process can simply help you to keep the back up of the themes and the plug-ins.

Sometimes, you may feel keeping backup is a hassle but when anything goes wrong in the future, you will surely feel happy that you have secured your data.