How to Back Up a WordPress Website for Beginners: Your First Backup in 15 Minutes

Sooner or later, every WordPress site owner faces one of these moments: an update turns the site into a blank white page, a plugin conflict takes down the contact form the week of a big launch, or the hosting account gets compromised and files start behaving strangely. In each case, the difference between a bad afternoon and a genuine disaster is one thing — whether you have a backup you can trust.

A WordPress backup is simply a copy of everything your site needs to exist: your files (themes, plugins, uploads, and configuration) and your database (your posts, pages, users, comments, and settings). As the official WordPress documentation puts it, a typical site needs both — a file-only backup is not enough, because if the database is lost you lose all your content.

The good news: you can set up reliable backups for free in about 15 minutes, and never think about them again. This guide walks you through the whole thing with a free plugin called UpdraftPlus — install it, take your first backup, store it somewhere safe, set a schedule, and then do the one step almost every beginner guide leaves out: verifying the backup actually works.

Step 1: Install a backup plugin (UpdraftPlus, free)

You can back up WordPress manually — downloading your files over FTP and exporting your database through phpMyAdmin — but manual backups get skipped, forgotten, and done wrong. A plugin automates the whole thing, and automation is what makes backups actually happen.

For beginners, the free version of UpdraftPlus is the sensible default: it’s the most-installed backup plugin in the WordPress ecosystem, the free tier covers full backups and restores, and you don’t need to pay anything to do everything in this guide.

Install and activate UpdraftPlus

1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins → Add New.
2. In the search box, type UpdraftPlus.
3. Look for “UpdraftPlus – Backup/Restore” (by the UpdraftPlus team — check the author name, since copycat plugins exist) and click Install Now, then Activate.
4. You’ll land on a welcome screen, or you can find the plugin anytime under Settings → UpdraftPlus Backups.

That is the entire setup so far. No configuration needed yet — you can take your first backup right now, before touching any settings.

Step 2: Take your first backup right now (the “Backup Now” button)

Don’t configure anything yet. Take a backup first, because a rough backup taken today beats a perfect system planned for next week.

Click Backup Now

1. Go to Settings → UpdraftPlus Backups. You’ll see the Backup / Restore tab.
2. Click the big blue Backup Now button.
3. A pop-up appears with options. For your first backup, leave both boxes checked: Include your database in the backup and Include your files in the backup. (The files option expands into components like plugins, themes, uploads, and others — leave them all checked for a full backup.)
4. The pop-up also asks whether to send the backup to remote storage. If you haven’t set that up yet (we’ll do it in Step 3), choose to store it locally for now — you can copy it elsewhere later.
5. Click Backup Now and wait. The progress bar shows each stage as it runs. Small sites finish in a couple of minutes; larger ones take longer.

When it’s done, your backup appears in the Existing backups list at the bottom of the tab, with the date, time, and what it contains. Congratulations — your site now has a safety net. (The steps above follow the official UpdraftPlus backup tutorial — bookmark it for reference.)

What got backed up

UpdraftPlus splits your backup into a few zip archives: one for the database, one for plugins, one for themes, one for uploads, and one for everything else. This matters because when you restore, you can choose exactly which pieces to roll back — for example, restoring just the database after a settings mishap without touching your uploads.

Step 3: Send backups somewhere safe (not your server)

This is where most beginners make their one big mistake: they back up religiously — and store every backup on the same server the site lives on. If the server fails, gets hacked, or the hosting account is suspended, the site and the backups go down together.

Backups should live in at least two different places. The WordPress docs’ rule of thumb: keep at least 3–5 recent backups, with copies in different locations — for example, one on your server, one on cloud storage like Google Drive or Dropbox, and one downloaded to your own computer.

Connect Google Drive (free remote storage)

The free version of UpdraftPlus connects to several free cloud options, including Google Drive and Dropbox. Google Drive is the simplest if you already have a Google account:

1. In UpdraftPlus, click the Settings tab.
2. Under Choose your remote storage, select Google Drive (or Dropbox, if you prefer it) and click Save Changes at the bottom.
3. A prompt will walk you through authorizing the connection — you’ll sign in to Google, grant UpdraftPlus permission to manage its own folder, and be returned to your dashboard.
4. Above the storage choice, set the backup schedules (Step 4) so future backups go to the cloud automatically.

From now on, every scheduled backup is copied off-site automatically. If your server vanished tomorrow, your backups would still be sitting safely in your Drive.

Step 4: Set a schedule you never have to think about

Manual backups fail because people forget. Automatic schedules succeed because they run while you sleep. On the UpdraftPlus Settings tab, you’ll see two separate schedule dropdowns — one for files, one for database — because the two parts change at different speeds.

How often should you back up?

The official WordPress guidance is refreshingly simple: for smaller websites with fewer posts, once a week is enough; for high-activity sites with lots of posts or daily changes, daily. Match the schedule to how often your site actually changes:

• A brochure or personal blog updated occasionally — files weekly, database weekly.
• A blog or business site updated a few times a week — files weekly, database every other day or daily.
• A store, membership site, or anything where you lose money or data hourly — files daily, database daily (or even more often — and consider this your cue to look at paid options with incremental backups).

The database is what holds your actual content and orders, so when in doubt, back it up more often than the files. Your theme files don’t change daily; your database might.

How many backups to keep (retention)

UpdraftPlus lets you set how many scheduled backups to retain for files and database separately. Keeping everything forever eats storage and costs money; keeping only the latest one leaves you exposed if that one backup turns out to be corrupt.

The widely recommended range is 3–5 recent backups. Set retention to at least 3 for both files and database. That way, if you discover a problem that started two weeks ago, you have a clean restore point from before it.

Always back up before big changes

Beyond the schedule, make a manual backup before any of these: updating WordPress core, updating a theme or plugin (especially several at once), changing themes, or migrating hosts. The WordPress docs put it bluntly: back up your database regularly, and always before an upgrade. This single habit prevents the majority of “update gone wrong” disasters.

Step 5: The step everyone skips — verify your backup works

Here’s the uncomfortable truth most tutorials avoid: a backup you haven’t tested is a hope, not a plan. Backups can fail silently — the process looks fine, the zip files exist, but a restore from them chokes halfway through. The official WordPress documentation even recommends backing up your automatic backups with a manual one “once in a while to guarantee that the process is working.”

You don’t need to be technical to check. Do this once after setup, then every few months:

Check that the backup files actually exist

1. In UpdraftPlus, scroll to Existing backups on the Backup / Restore tab and confirm your latest scheduled backup is listed with all its components (database, plugins, themes, uploads, others).
2. Download the backup set to your own computer using the download icons next to each component — this gives you your off-site copy and proves the files are retrievable. Store them in a clearly labeled folder.

Do a test restore (the real proof)

The gold-standard test is restoring to a staging or test site — a copy of your site where nothing matters if it breaks. Many hosts offer one-click staging environments. Install UpdraftPlus there, upload your backup files into it (the Upload backup files link in Existing backups), and click Restore. If the site comes back working, your backup is real.

No staging site? The next best thing: confirm each component downloads completely and opens as a valid zip file, and check the UpdraftPlus log for the last scheduled run (click the log link under Existing backups) to confirm it completed with no errors. A database backup that’s empty is the classic silent failure, and checking takes thirty seconds.

FAQ: WordPress backup questions beginners actually ask

How often should I back up my WordPress website?

It depends on how often your site changes. The official WordPress recommendation: smaller sites with few posts, once a week; high-activity sites, daily. And always take a manual backup before updates, theme changes, or migrations. A weekly schedule with 3–5 retained copies covers most beginner sites.

Do I need to back up both files and the database?

Yes — a complete WordPress backup has two parts. The files (themes, plugins, uploads, wp-config.php) are your site’s body; the database (posts, pages, users, settings) is its memory. A file-only backup can’t restore your content, and a database-only backup can’t restore your design or media. Back up both, every time.

Can I just store backups on my own server?

You can, but you shouldn’t rely on it. If the server fails or the account is compromised, server-stored backups disappear with the site. Use free remote storage (Google Drive or Dropbox via UpdraftPlus) so at least one copy lives somewhere independent of your host.

Is the free version of UpdraftPlus enough?

For a typical beginner or small business site, yes: the free version does full manual and scheduled backups of files and database, remote storage to free cloud services, and one-click restores. Paid tiers add things like incremental backups, migration tools, and more storage destinations — worth considering once your site earns money or updates constantly. (WPBeginner’s UpdraftPlus backup and restore guide is a good companion walkthrough if you want a second view of the process.)

My site broke after an update — how do I restore from a backup?

Go to Settings → UpdraftPlus Backups, find the backup from before the update in Existing backups, and click Restore. A wizard lets you choose which parts to restore (start with plugins, themes, and database). Confirm, let it run, and check your site. If you only have the backup files on your computer, use Upload backup files first, then restore.

What’s the difference between a backup and a staging site?

A backup is a frozen copy of your site at a point in time, used for recovery. A staging site is a live working copy where you test changes safely. They complement each other: test risky changes on staging, and keep backups for when something goes wrong anyway.

The 15-minute backup checklist

If you did everything above, your site is now protected. Here’s the whole system on one checklist:

1. Installed UpdraftPlus and took a first full backup (database + files).
2. Connected remote storage (Google Drive or Dropbox) so backups leave the server.
3. Scheduled automatic backups matched to your site’s activity (weekly for quiet sites, daily for busy ones).
4. Set retention to at least 3 backups each for files and database.
5. Verified the backup: files exist, components download, and (ideally) a test restore works.
6. Habit: manual backup before every core, theme, or plugin update.

Backups are the least glamorous part of running a website — and the one you’ll be most grateful for the day something breaks. Fifteen minutes today buys you the ability to undo almost any disaster with a single click. And once backups are handled, they’re just one part of keeping a site healthy — knowing what your robots.txt does and keeping your sitemap submitted to Google are the natural next maintenance habits. Set it up once, check it occasionally, and get back to the fun part: building your site.