Backup your website and database

This article describes a method to take a backup of your website and database only, using cPanel. Read how to make a backup of your entire cPanel account here.

If you would like support, we can carry out this entire task for you for a very reasonable cost - please contact us for more information.

1. Log in to your cPanel - see this article on how to access your cPanel for more details
2. Check that there is enough disk space available to store a copy of the files before proceeding - on the right side, Statistics section.
3. Files: to backup the website files, go to Files > File Manager.
   1. Website files (e.g. HTML files, PHP files for CMS) are typically located in the public_html directory.
   2. In some cases files are in a subdirectory or directory outwith public_html. Check if this is the case before proceeding.
4. Click once to select the public_html directory, then on the toolbar at top right, click Compress and select a compression type.
5. Allow cPanel to generate the archive, then click once on the new archive file to select, then click Download on the top toolbar.
6. Save the file somewhere safe on your computer.
7. Once downloaded, the archive can be deleted on cPanel to save disk space.
8. Database: to backup the database, go back to the main Tools page in cPanel.
9. Go to Files > Backup.
10. Under Download a Database Backup, click the name of the database to download a copy.
    1. If more than one database appears, you may wish to verify which is in active use on your website.
    2. To do this, as an example, go back into File Manager, go into the public_html directory, and edit the relevant configuration file, which should contain details of the database used. E.g. in WordPress this is information is in the wp-config.php file. In other systems it may be index.php or config.php etc.
11. Save the database file somewhere safe on your computer.