Automatically Backup WordPress Sites to Dropbox

September 22, 2012 | Written by Ed Andrea

Backing up your site is good.

Automatically backing up your site is better.

Automatically backing up your site to somewhere easy to use like Dropbox.com is the best.

Wordpress Backup to Dropbox is simple plugin that will automatically backup your WordPress site to your Dropbox account. Here's how it works:

Before You Start

You're going to need two things for this tutorial:

A WordPress site.
A Dropbox account. If you don't already have one, sign up at https://www.dropbox.com.

Step 1: Install the plugin.

Go to Plugins > Add New.
Search for Wordpress Backup to Dropbox and install that plugin.

Step 2: Authorize the Dropbox connection

After installation, the plugin will ask you to Authorize it to connect with your Dropbox account:

You will go to the login page for Dropbox where you can enter your login name and password.
After you enter you login details, you'll see a message that the app wants to connect with your Dropbox account.
Click Allow to complete the authorization.

You will get a message that the authorization was successful.
Close the browser tab and return to the tab which has your WordPress admin active.
Click Continue.

Step 4: Configure your backups

You'll now see the main configuration screen for the plugin.
By default, the plugin will back your site up weekly. You can change this if you wish.
After you've set the schedule, Save Changes.

Step 5: Make the first backup

Before we leave this plugin to run, we're going to test that it works.

Click Backup Now in the WPB2D menu.
Click Start Backup.
Wait. Wait. And wait some more. This first backup is not a fast process. The bigger your site, the longer it takes.
Your second backup should go MUCH faster. In order to save time and bandwidth the plugin only uploads files that have changed since the last backup. The only exception is your database files that will be uploaded every time.

Step 6: View your backup files on Dropbox

Go to Dropbox.com.
Find the Apps directory and double click to open it.

You'll see your backup directory inside, called /wpb2d/
Double click that to open it.

You will see your entire site has been backed up to Dropbox, where you can retrieve it any time you need.

Step 7: Schedule routine backups

For your automatic backups, you can set a day of the week as well as a frequency schedule.

Setting the time for the backup is also an option but it could be a little deceptive. The backup process only starts when someone visits the website, so if you have the process set for 1 a.m. and nobody visits your site until 6 a.m, the backup will be 5 hours late.

If you are running periodic backups, be sure to frequently check in on your History to see if there are any error messages. If you find errors and something hasn't been loaded, you may have to manually upload or backup that file.

Once your files backup are completed, you only need to move those files back to your server to put them back on your site.

Your database backup is a little different. The program will store the file on the server with the extension .sql. Files ending in .sql it needs to be imported into your database, often via software called phpMyAdmin. The database is backed up into a file named '[database name]-backup.sql'. It will be will be found at the path 'wp-content/backups' within the App folder of your Dropbox.

Comments

#1 DonSP 2012-09-27 13:57

Michael,
Do you have any experience with the server load for this setup? I had a backup plugin installed for my WP site with the backup storing onto an Amazon bucket. I am on HostGator and suffered repeated suspensions for excess CPU usage for the shared hosting account. After struggling literally for days to find the problem, I learned that my Automatic WP Backup plugin was a monster resource eating culprit - consuming occasionally over 45% of all the shared server CPU resources when it ran. And apparently the scheduling function causes resource problems too. Shutting that one off caused immediate relief.
I sure don't want a repeat of that situation.
So - has there been any testing of the server load for this plugin plus Dropbox?
Thanks!

#2 AprilRC 2012-10-12 07:49

I noticed the plugin wouldn't work (no errors) unless I increase the php_memory_limi t to 64M.

It's running successfully now but I can't seem to make the scheduling functionality work. Any ideas?

#3 aw 2012-10-17 02:31

Is there a Joomla version?

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