Now and then the news of the websites getting hacked keeps flashing on the TV and the newspapers. Most of the people make one major mistake of not keeping the backup of the site.
In the last six years, I have heard it from many people. You should always take a step ahead to remain safe.
Just a few days ago, one of my clients told me that her web hosting takes care of the backup. Well, to make it clear, whenever a web hosting company offers to do the daily backups, it means the backup is also stored on its server.
It means whenever any hacker injects any malicious code on your website, the backups will also get infected.
That’s the reason it’s recommended to download the backup files on your computer and keep them offline. You may also upload them to Dropbox or maybe Google Drive.
But the thing is do you know how to backup your website using cPanel?
If not, I am going to walk you through this. Here’s an introduction to web hosting control panels, including cPanel, the most popular web panel.
A Step by Step Guide to Backup Your Whole Website on Your Local Drive
Before we start, it’s important to notice something. If you’re hosting more than one websites, you have to follow a different method.
It’s only available for the single website owners. For multiple websites, I will write another article.
For now, you have to concentrate on these steps.
Step 1:
Log into the cPanel of your web hosting account. Many web hostings provide an AMP (Account Management Panel) in which you can find an option to open the cPanel.
Now, search for Files in which you can find Backups’ icon. Depending on your web hosting, you may also get a separate section for Backups.
Click on this icon.
Step 2:
This is the backup wizard where you will be asked to download the full website backup. You can easily see a button.
Click on this button.
Step 3:
Once you open this section, if you already have created any backups, you can see the file to download. Most of the web hostings keep the file only up to 7 days.
But now you have to create a new backup. So you will be asked to choose the backup destination and the email address.
If you don’t want to receive the notification, you can choose the radio button.
Once you fill these things, click on the Generate Backup button.
Step 4:
You will see a notification of the backup generation in progress and you will receive a notification on your email when it’s done.
You don’t need to wait for that. Just click on the Go Back link shown below.
Step 5:
Now you can see a link below Backups Available for Download. To download it, just click on that and the download will start.
Depending on the size of the file, it will get downloaded to your computer and you can store it somewhere safe.
If you have noticed a warning in the red color on every screenshot, it’s saying that the backup will automatically get deleted after 7 days.
And it’s better to download offline because restoring your website from the backup available on the server isn’t possible through cPanel.
Most of the people also raise the question to use a backup plugin instead of dealing with cPanel. Well, if you can do it without putting any extra load or even touching your website’s data then it’s always better to use cPanel.
Using a plugin is easy but you should understand that plugins can affect the page loading time of the website.
And to keep your website running, it’s better to learn more about cPanel instead of messing up with its data. Have you used cPanel before?
If not, the above-mentioned steps are easy to follow and you can backup your website within a few minutes.
In the last couple of years, the usage of cPanel has increased a lot because most of the web hosting companies are offering it with their standard account.
A few years ago, only the premium web hosting plan owners used to get access to FTP and cPanel. But not it has become so common and user-friendly.
I Hope You Can Easily Backup Your Website Using cPanel
No doubt that for a non-technical person, the cPanel may seem a little bit complicated because of so many options. But if you read them properly, you can easily accomplish what you have in your mind.
The whole data of your website is available in the cPanel’s root directory. As mentioned earlier, you can generate the backup if you host only one website.
If you host multiple websites on the same web hosting server and use this method, the backup file will consist the data of all those websites.
And it’s not possible to extract the data of only one website from that backup file. So it’s necessary to keep this in your mind.
Although if you scroll down, you can find the different options to backup the home directory and the database separately.
I hope you have understood the concept and you can easily backup your website using cPanel. If you have any kind of doubt in your mind, it’s better to clear it.
Comment below or you can use the contact us page to your query to us. We will be happy to help you. Keep learning and be safe.
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