How to Restore WordPress from a Backup: Best Practices

No matter how experienced you are with WordPress, unexpected issues can arise. From accidental file deletions to plugin errors or even malicious attacks, these challenges can disrupt your site. That’s where having a reliable backup becomes a lifesaver. A backup ensures you can restore your site quickly and avoid long downtimes or starting from scratch.

Whether your website crashes, loses data, or you want to revert to an earlier version, restoring from a backup is the fastest way to get back on track. The process doesn’t have to be complicated with the right tools and methods.

This tutorial shows 4 ways to restore a website, leading to a post-restoration checklist and the best practices to ensure your WordPress backup and restore process is seamless and stress-free.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Restoring your WordPress site from a backup ensures quick recovery from accidental deletions, hacking, or compatibility issues.
• Always verify your backup files’ availability and integrity before you start the restoration process.
• Use reliable methods like hosting control panel tools, backup plugins, manual restoration, or a staging site for a smooth experience.
• Test the restored site thoroughly to ensure all features, forms, links, and media work as expected.
• Keep plugins, themes, and WordPress core updated to prevent future issues.
• Regularly schedule full website backups and store them in multiple locations. For example, with local drives, you can store in the cloud and locally on your computer.
• Test your backups periodically to confirm they’re complete and functional.
• Maintain detailed logs of changes made to your site for easier troubleshooting during restoration.
• Train team members on backup protocols to ensure preparedness for emergencies.

Why Restore WordPress Website from Backup?

There are various reasons why restoring your site from a backup is essential for keeping it secure, functional, and operational. Unexpected file deletions or database modifications are common issues, especially on sites with multiple administrators.

While minor changes can sometimes be undone, larger mistakes, like deleted plugin settings or themes, require a full backup restoration to avoid downtime and site malfunctions.

Hackers also pose a significant threat to WordPress websites. If there is a breach, restoring your site from a clean backup eliminates malicious code and restores your website safely. This process minimizes damage and helps you regain control over your content.

WordPress themes or plugin updates sometimes cause compatibility issues, leading to broken features or crashes. A backup restoration provides a quick solution, letting you investigate the problem without affecting site functionality. Regular backups ensure you’re always prepared for any of these challenges.

Prepare for Restoration

Before restoring your WordPress site, it’s important to ensure everything is in place to avoid complications. Start by checking your backup files. Ensure you have the latest backup ready, and files are complete and not corrupt. If unsure, test the backup on a staging site to confirm it works correctly.

Next, gather the tools you’ll need for the restoration process. These include access to your hosting control panel, an FTP client, phpMyAdmin for managing your database, and any plugins you used to create the backup. Having these tools ready ensures a smooth restoration without delays.

Finally, let your site visitors know there may be some downtime during the restoration. You can do this by enabling a maintenance mode to display a friendly message explaining the temporary outage. Remember, clear communication helps maintain trust while you work on bringing your site back online. Once everything is prepared, here’s how to restore WordPress from backup.

4 Ways to Restore WordPress Website

Restoring your WordPress website is important when dealing with hacks, errors, or unexpected changes. Here are the most effective methods to restore a WordPress site quickly and efficiently:

Restore WordPress Site Using the Hosted.com cPanel

Hosted.com users can easily restore their WordPress site to a previous state using its control panel (cPanel), which provides a straightforward way to revert changes, making it perfect for beginners and advanced users. However, restoring your site through the Hosted.com cPanel can be done in 3 efficient ways, depending on your requirements and situation. These include using:

1. Acronis Tool
2. Softaculous
3. Backup Wizard.

Let’s go through each of these step-by-step.

Use Acronis Tool

At Hosted.com, our servers use the Acronis tool to create automatic daily backups of WordPress files and databases. These backups are performed regularly and stored securely in the cloud, ensuring your website’s data is always protected and available for recovery when required.

This automatic WordPress backup restore option is useful for addressing unexpected issues, such as file corruption, plugin conflicts, or random changes. With just a few clicks, you can restore WordPress website to its previous version, saving time and effort. Here’s how you can do it:

Login to the Hosted.com cPanel using your credentials. Go to Files → Acronis Backup.

Browse the list of available backup timestamps and choose the required period for restoring your files. Let’s say you want to restore the backup created on December 10 – click on it.

Here, you’ll see various backup types. If you want to restore everything, click Recover the account.

A pop-up screen will appear. Click Start recovery to restore WordPress website. However, if you want to skip the database or home directory, mark the corresponding option, then click Start recovery.

On the other hand, if you want to restore a specific backup type, let’s say the database, click on Databases.

Identify the database associated with your website, check the corresponding box, and click Recover.

A confirmation box will appear, saying, “The selected databases will be recovered to the original location”. If you wish to keep the old database intact, add a Suffix. This will restore the database with a new name instead of overwriting the existing one. You can also restore database users. Once ready, click Start Recovery.

You can also monitor the restoration progress by navigating to the Recovery Operations log. This ensures your database is restored efficiently and securely.

Lastly, visit your website to ensure everything is working well. Check pages, plugins, and themes to confirm the restore was successful.

Important:

If you’re restoring your WordPress database and keeping the old one intact, remember: this won’t be done when you reach your maximum allotment of 5 databases. If that happens and you want more, contact us from your Hosted.com dashboard.

Use Softaculous

Softaculous is a user-friendly app installer with easy WordPress backup and restoration capabilities. If you’ve manually created a backup using this, you can go through the following steps to restore it:

Navigate to cPanel → Popular Applications → WordPress. Click Backup and Restore.

Next, click on the Restore button (represented with the circular arrow) next to your required backup.

Now, choose what you want to restore and then click Restore Installation.

Important:

Any backup created on Softaculous will be purged after 7 days. This helps users in 2 ways: First, it saves their disk space on the package, and second, it allows users to use the most recent backup by removing the old ones. However, if you forget that you created a backup recently, you can use the previous approach.

Use Backup Wizard

This method is recommended if you’ve used cPanel’s built-in feature to create a backup and store it locally on your computer. If this is the case, go to cPanel → Files → Backup Wizard.

Click Restore.

Next, click on your restore type, for example, Home Directory.

Then click Choose File to select your backup file. Lastly, click Upload to restore WordPress home directory.

Use a Backup Plugin

Many WordPress plugins allow you to back up your site directly from your dashboard. These plugins can create partial or complete backups, depending on your requirements. A partial backup focuses on specific parts, like your database or uploaded files, and a complete one includes everything on your site.

The main difference between backup plugins lies in their features. Some plugins, like UpdraftPlus, ManageWP, and WP Time Capsule, offer incremental backups.

An incremental backup only saves changes made since the last backup. This is helpful because it reduces unnecessary backups and improves your site’s performance. For example, if no new content or changes are detected, the plugin skips the backup process, saving server space and resources.

While each plugin may look different, the steps to back up and restore your site are usually similar. Choosing a reliable plugin with features like incremental backups ensures a smoother experience and keeps your website secure.

In this tutorial, we use WP Time Capsule. The tool offers a fully functional free trial for 30 days, which lets you analyze its features before deciding whether to purchase. Here’s how to use it:

Log in to your WordPress dashboard. Navigate to WP Time Capsule → Backups. From there, select a restore point using the calendar. If you cannot access your WordPress admin dashboard because your site is down, refer to WP Time Capsule’s guide on restoring a site that’s currently down.

After completing the process, test your website to confirm everything works correctly.

TIP: Periodically restore a backup to ensure it is functional. Enable incremental backups. This feature ensures only changes are backed up, saving time and resources. Ensure your backups are stored securely in the cloud for easy retrieval.

Use File Manager to Manually Restore WordPress Backup

If you don’t have a backup plugin, manually restore your WordPress site. To do this, access your WordPress files and database through your hosting control panel.

While the steps may differ slightly based on your hosting provider, the overall process is similar. If your hosting company doesn’t offer a File Manager feature, an FTP client (e.g., FileZilla) will efficiently upload and manage your files.

At Hosted.com, you can easily manage your website files using File Manager. Here’s how to do it:

First, locate the backup of your WordPress site. This could be a ZIP file or an extracted folder containing all your website files. Then, log in to the cPanel account and navigate to Files → File Manager.

Next, go to the public_html folder where your WordPress files are stored. Select all the existing files in this folder, right-click, and choose Delete to clear the space for your backup files.

Now, upload your WordPress core backup files to the public_html folder. Do this by dragging and dropping the files or using the Upload button in your File Manager.

TIP: If you’re a Hosted.com client and have your backup as a ZIP file, you can upload it and extract it directly within the File Manager. You can also click View Trash to view your deleted items and restore them if required.

After restoring website files, restore the database, because manually restoring a WordPress backup also involves restoring the database backup file. This tutorial specifically focuses on restoring a MySQL database backup, provided you’ve already exported the .sql file.

Here’s how to restore WordPress database:

Go to cPanel → Databases → phpMyAdmin. This tool lets you manage your website’s database.

Once in phpMyAdmin, choose the database for your WordPress site. Mark the Check All checkbox to select all tables, then click Drop from the dropdown menu next to it to delete them. This clears the database for importing your backup.

Now, click on your database, where you deleted all the tables. Click the Import tab in phpMyAdmin and then click Choose File to upload your MySQL database backup file (usually a .sql file). Leave all settings as they are and click Import at the bottom of the page to restore your database. 

Use Staging Environment

A staging environment is a separate, test-friendly copy of your website where you can safely make changes or troubleshoot without affecting your live site. It’s beneficial when restoring a WordPress website to avoid unexpected errors on your live site. You may use this method if you want to:

• Test restoration to ensure the backup works correctly before applying it to your live site.
• Identify and correct issues that caused a need for restoration.
• Safely test new updates, themes, or plugins after restoring a backup.

To use this method, you must create a staging website (also called ‘setting up a staging environment’). Hosted.com users may go through the following article to create a staging website:

– How To Setup A WordPress Staging Site

Once the staging environment is created, log in to the WordPress dashboard for the staging site. Use your backup tool (e.g., UpdraftPlus) or manual methods to restore WordPress site (we use the UpdraftPlus plugin in this example).

If you already have a backup file created with UpdraftPlus, it will appear under Backup / Restore, which you can access by navigating to WordPress Dashboard → UpdraftPlus. To restore it, click Restore next to the desired backup. Alternatively, you can upload backup files directly from your computer or connected cloud storage.

After the restoration is complete, check your staging site’s functionality. Visit key pages to ensure they load correctly. Test permalink structure, plugins, forms, and other interactive elements. Ensure the database and content are displayed properly. Fix any issues that arise during testing. If the restored backup works perfectly, deploy the staging site to live.

TIP: Always create a new backup of your staging site before pushing it live. Thoroughly test every feature on your staging website to avoid surprises. Choose a reliable WordPress host with robust staging tools for a seamless process.

Post-Restoration Steps

After restoring your website, it’s important to ensure everything works perfectly. Regardless of how you restore WordPress site, these extra steps may save you from unexpected issues later. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Test All Site Functionalities: Start by checking your website’s basic features. Test contact forms, links, and media files like images and videos to ensure they work correctly. This will ensure visitors can navigate your site without any problems.
2. Update Plugins & Themes: Check themes and plugins are updated to their latest version and are compatible with your WordPress version. Outdated plugins or themes can cause errors or security vulnerabilities. Update them through the WordPress dashboard if necessary.
3. Check for Broken Links or Missing Images: Explore your site to spot any broken links or missing images. Broken links can frustrate visitors and harm your SEO rankings.
4. Monitor Site Performance & Security Logs: Finally, monitor your site’s performance and security logs. Look for unusual activity, like unauthorized login attempts or slow loading speeds, which may signal problems. Plugins like Wordfence can help you monitor these logs.

These steps ensure your restored site is fully functional, secure, and ready for visitors. These checks are simple but essential to keeping your site running smoothly.

Best Practices for WordPress Backup & Restoration

Understanding how to restore WordPress website from backup is not enough; you must also know how to keep your WordPress site secure by implementing smart backup and restoration practices. These steps prepare you for unexpected issues and ensure a smooth recovery process.

Schedule Regular Backups:

Regular backups are the foundation of a strong recovery plan. Set up automatic backups daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on how often your site changes.

Dynamic sites with frequent updates benefit from daily backups, while less active sites can choose weekly or monthly schedules. Use tools like UpdraftPlus or your hosting provider’s built-in backup options. Consistent backups minimize data loss and make restoration faster.

Store Backups in Secure Locations:

Save backups in secure, off-site locations to protect against server failures or cyberattacks. Cloud storage services like Amazon S3 and Google Drive are excellent options. Storing backups in multiple locations ensures redundancy and provides peace of mind.

Test Backups & Restoration:

Backups are only useful if they work when required. Regularly test your backup files by restoring them to a staging environment or test site. This ensures your backups are reliable and helps you pinpoint any issues before they affect your live site.

Document Process:

Maintain a clear, step-by-step guide for backup and restoration procedures. Include details like where backups are stored, login credentials (stored securely in a password manager), and instructions for initiating the process. Well-documented steps make it easier for team members to handle restoration if needed.

Log Site Changes:

Note major updates, like plugin installations, theme changes, or database modifications. Detailed WordPress logs make troubleshooting easier if something goes wrong and help you know which backup version to use.

Educate Your Team:

Ensure everyone managing your site understands backup protocols and can restore the site if necessary. Simple training sessions can prevent mistakes and speed up the recovery process in an emergency.

By following these best practices, you can protect your WordPress site and recover from potential issues quickly and effectively. Proactive backup management ensures your website is secure and functional at all times.

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