WordPress Backup Guide 2026: How to Backup Your Website and Restore It Safely

Imagine waking up one morning to find your entire website gone — hacked, crashed, or accidentally deleted. Without a backup, years of hard work, content, and SEO rankings could vanish overnight. That is why backing up your WordPress website is not optional — it is essential. In this guide, you will learn exactly how to back up your WordPress site in 2026, the best tools to use, and how to restore your site quickly if something goes wrong.

Why WordPress Backups Are Critically Important

WordPress powers over 43% of all websites on the internet, which also makes it the most targeted platform by hackers. In addition to security threats, you can also lose your website due to a hosting failure, a bad plugin update, a botched theme change, or accidental content deletion. A recent, working backup is your safety net. If your site gets hacked, a backup lets you restore it in minutes rather than rebuilding it from scratch. To learn how to protect your site from hackers, also read: How to Secure Your WordPress Website in 2026.

What Does a WordPress Backup Include?

A complete WordPress backup has two parts:

Database backup: Contains all your posts, pages, comments, settings, users, and other data stored in your MySQL database.
Files backup: Contains all your WordPress core files, your theme files, plugin files, and most importantly, your media uploads (images, PDFs, videos) stored in the wp-content folder.

You need BOTH for a complete backup. Just backing up the database is not enough if your theme or plugin files are corrupted.

How Often Should You Back Up Your WordPress Site?

The right backup frequency depends on how often you update your site. As a general rule: if you publish content daily, back up daily. If you publish weekly, back up weekly. For ecommerce stores (WooCommerce, etc.) where orders and customer data are constantly changing, you should back up at minimum once per day — ideally in real time. Learn how to set up WooCommerce properly: How to Set Up WooCommerce in 2026.

Best WordPress Backup Plugins in 2026

1. UpdraftPlus – Best Free Backup Plugin

UpdraftPlus is the most popular WordPress backup plugin with over 3 million active installations. The free version lets you schedule automatic backups of both your database and files, and store them in remote locations like Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon S3. It also provides a one-click restore feature, making it extremely beginner-friendly. This is listed as one of the must-have plugins in our guide: 10 Best Free WordPress Plugins You Must Install in 2026.

Price: Free / Premium from $70/year
Remote storage: Google Drive, Dropbox, S3, FTP

2. Jetpack Backup – Real-Time Backups

Jetpack Backup (now also offered standalone as VaultPress) provides real-time backups — every time you make a change, it is instantly backed up. It also includes activity logs so you can see exactly what changed and when, and you can restore your site to any point in time. This is the gold standard for ecommerce sites where every order matters.

Price: From $9.95/month
Best for: WooCommerce stores, high-traffic sites

3. BackWPup – Free and Powerful

BackWPup is a free plugin that gives you comprehensive backup options including database exports, file backups, WordPress XML export, and plugin list backups. It supports sending backups to Dropbox, S3, FTP, and email. A solid free alternative to UpdraftPlus.

How to Set Up Automatic Backups with UpdraftPlus

Here is how to get started with UpdraftPlus in 5 minutes:

Install and activate UpdraftPlus from your WordPress plugin repository
Go to Settings > UpdraftPlus Backups
Set your backup schedule (daily for files, daily for database)
Connect a remote storage location (Google Drive is easiest)
Click “Backup Now” to run your first manual backup and verify it works
Your backups will now run automatically on the schedule you set

Where to Store Your Backups

Never store your only backup on the same server as your website. If the server crashes, you lose both. Always use at least one remote storage location. Recommended options are Google Drive (free up to 15GB), Dropbox, Amazon S3, or a local download to your computer. The best practice is the 3-2-1 backup rule: 3 copies, on 2 different types of storage, with 1 copy offsite.

How to Restore Your WordPress Site from a Backup

With UpdraftPlus, restoring is simple: Go to Settings > UpdraftPlus Backups, find the backup you want to restore, and click “Restore.” Select the components to restore (database, plugins, themes, uploads, or all), and click restore. The plugin will handle the rest automatically. If your entire site is down and you cannot access the dashboard, you can restore using FTP and phpMyAdmin through your hosting control panel.

Hostinger’s Built-in Backup Feature

If you host your site on Hostinger (which we recommend for WordPress beginners — see our guide: How to Setup Domain and Install WordPress on Hostinger), you get automatic weekly backups included in your plan. You can create manual backups from hPanel at any time. However, always supplement hosting backups with your own plugin-based backups for maximum safety.

Final Thoughts

Backups are the insurance policy for your website. It takes less than 10 minutes to set up an automated backup system using UpdraftPlus, and it can save you from catastrophic data loss. Do not wait until something goes wrong — set up your backups today. Combined with strong security practices, a good backup strategy will keep your WordPress site safe and running smoothly for years. For more WordPress maintenance tips, see: 10 WordPress SEO Tips to Rank #1 on Google in 2026.