WordPress Database Backup

published

Announcing the WordPress Database Backup plugin!

This is an easy-to-use plugin to quickly backup your WordPress database. You may download the backup file, or have it emailed to the address of your choice.

Click Manage -> Backup:
WordPress admin bar with Backup menu item

By default, the core WordPress tabels are backed up. You may select additional tables, if any, and choose how you’d like to receive your backup file. Then simply click Download!
WordPress Database Backup plugin main screen

But wait, that's not all!

If you also have WP-Cron installed, you'll be able to schedule daily backups of your database, sent direct to your Inbox! WordPress Database Backup plugin scheduled backup options

Installation

Please be sure to read the installation instructions included in the zip file. For the impatient, here they are:
  1. Create a directory /wp-content/backup/ inside your WordPress directory.
    $ cd wordpress/wp-content
    $ mkdir backup
  2. Make this directory writable by your webserver.
    $ chgrp www-data backup
    $ chmod g+w backup
  3. Insall and activate the plugin
  4. Navigate to Manage -> Backup
  5. Backup!

    Delivery Method Details

    None
    This will save the database backup in your /wp-content/backup/ directory on your server. This is provided as a convenience only. Please do not leave your database backup files lying around!
    Email
    The backup file will be emailed to the address you specify. Gzip compression is strongly encouraged. Once delivered, the backup file will be deleted from the server.
    Download
    The backup file will be sent to your browser, where you can save it to your local workstation. Gzip compression is strongly encouraged. Once downloaded, the backup file will be deleted from the server.

    The Fine Print

    This plugin works for me. Currently, I have about 160 posts, with a little over one thousand comments. A gzip compressed backup of my database produced with this plugin is about 460 KB. This plugin was successfully tested on another blog with 1369 posts and 4000 comments. The gzipped backup file was ahout 1.3 megabytes, and was successfully emailed and downloaded.

    If you have a huge database (tens of thousands of posts and comments) this plugin may not work for you, for any of the following reasons:

    • PHP memory limit: server operators can limit the amount of memory a PHP script may use. If the size of your database backup exceeds this limit, the backup will not succeed.
    • PHP time out: server operators can limit the amount of time for which a PHP script may run. If it takes longer than this amount of time to backup your database, the backup will not succeed.
    • Email attachment file size limitations: many email providers do not accept email attachments greater than a certain size. If your database backup is excessively large, it may not make it to your Inbox.
    • insufficient disk space: although extremely unlikely, if your server does not have space to store the temporary backup file, the backup will not succeed.

Please note that including the database tables for your plugins in the backup is likely to introduce any (or all) of the problems listed above. Plugins like user and statistics tracking, or spam filter logs, can grow to enormous sizes.

Finally, although this plugin works for me, I will not accept any responsibility for any problems that this may cause for you. Use this plugin at your own risk.

Download WP-DB-Backup 1.4 today!

Thanks go to the following people for helping me develop and test this plugin:

home / about / archive / RSS