Automatically Backup Your WordPress Blog To Dropbox

There are different ways to backup your WordPress blog.

The most common way to backup your WordPress blog is to download all the files using an FTP client like Filezilla. Then go to the phpmyadmin panel of your hosting account and export the SQL database associated with the blog.

Then there are these online backup services like Backupify and Vaultpress, which lets users create offsite backups. What this means is that you don’t have to perform repeated manual backups, your blog is automatically backed up at scheduled intervals to their servers. Later, you can download all the files by logging in to the online account and then restore your website with another hosting provider.

If you are a Dropbox fan and always wanted to download your entire WordPress blog to Dropbox, here is something very interesting.

Enter Wp-Time machine, a brilliant WordPress plugin which can be used to automatically backup your WordPress blog to your Dropbox or Amazon S3 account. You can also customize the plugin to backup your entire website to any FTP server of your choice.

Once the plugin is installed, go to the plugin options page and choose the service where you would want to backup all the files and database. Hit the “Create WordPress Archive” button and it’s done. The plugin will copy all the files present in your site’s “www” directory, export the SQL database and automatically send the archived files to your Dropbox account.

Note: The wp-config.php file and the .HTACCESS file is not backed up for security reasons. You should store a copy of both these files in your computer’s hard drive or in any other safe location.

I tried the plugin with this blog and it works like a charm. All I have to do is hit the “Create archive” button, wait for the files to be backed up and then run the Dropbox client on my computer. All my website’s files then get saved in the “My Dropbox > Wp-Time Machine” folder, automagically.

Related: How to completely backup WordPress blog’s database