Creating/restoring a back-up
WP Engine has both automated and manual backups to help protect your data, removing the need for any bulky third-party application. Backups exist for all environments on WP Engine by default (Production, Staging, and Development). These backups are stored offsite on Amazon S3 and are encrypted in transit and at rest.
In this article we’ll discuss how to locate, restore, and download a backup checkpoint, as well as how to restore a backup to another environment entirely.
Locate Backup and Restore
All backup functionality takes place from the same page in your User Portal, called “Backup Points”. To access the Backup Points page:
- Log in to the User Portal
- Select the environment name
- Click Backup Points
This page shows the 40 most recent checkpoints.
We store up to 60 days worth of checkpoints. If you need a checkpoint that is not displayed, contact Support.
Make a Backup Checkpoint
Backups are automatically taken nightly, but if you’re planning to make changes to your site you will typically want to make a fresh backup checkpoint before proceeding.
- Open Backup Points in the User Portal
- Click Backup Now
- A second window will pop up with required fields:
- Backup description — For example “Before updating plugins”
- Send notification to — List emails, separated by commas, to receive a notification when the backup completes
- Click Create environment-type Backup
NOTE: It’s possible for the email notification to be filtered into Junk or Spam. Be sure to check these folders in your email inbox.
Restore a Backup
To restore (or rollback) your website to a previous version:
- Open Backup Points in the User Portal
- Select a backup from the list by clicking the radio button
- Backup are in server time UTC
- Click Restore
- A window will pop up with required fields:
- Restore to — Select an environment name to restore this backup to
- Restore with database — Check to restore database information OR Uncheck to restore files only. The partial database selection of specific tables is not an option.
- Send notification to — List email addresses, separated by commas, to receive a notification when the restore completes
- Click Restore Backup
The automated restore process can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours. This largely depends on the size of your site and the number of files. An email will be sent to the email addresses listed when the restore has completed.
NOTE: It’s possible for the email notification to be filtered into Junk or Spam. Be sure to check these email folders.
If you choose to restore the backup to another environment, the source environment that the backup belongs to will not be impacted.
The restore process is destructive, meaning all content will be overwritten on the destination environment to match the content of the backup point selected. This means files present on the destination, if not present in that backup point, will be removed from the destination upon restore.