Generating and Restoring Backup Files

I always say this to my clients and I’ll say it again: backups are very important. If you value your website, you should always have an updated copy of your full account.

Some hosts offer daily backups for free but you should NEVER rely on your host’s backups alone. Unfortunate circumstances can happen to anyone — so no matter how good your host is, there is always a chance that things could go wrong!

Generating Backup Files

Generating backups is easy and everything is automated once you choose which type of backup you want to generate.

To generate a backup file, simply go to Files > Backups in cPanel. You can choose to generate either a full account backup or a partial backup.

Full cPanel backups are generally used to transfer to another web host, but they are very very useful when a huge data loss occurs and you can’t say for sure which of your files were affected. I recommend downloading a full backup of your cPanel account every time you make significant changes to your site. I personally generate and download backups every week, regardless if I update my sites or not.

Partial backups are useful too. Downloading a home directory backup would get you a copy of all the sites and emails in your account. Take note that a home directory backup does NOT include database files! So if your site is database-driven (e.g., WordPress), you will need to generate a MySQL backup as well as this contains WordPress’ settings, content, etc.

Restoring Backup Files

You can restore partial backups yourself. You just need to select the appropriate backup type and upload your backup file in the “Partial Backups” section of the Backups page (see image above).

As for restoring full cPanel backups, you will need to contact your host and ask them to restore the backup you have.

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