Optimal files to Backup?

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  • November 4, 2013 at 7:09 am #17973
    Rainer Rollfink
    Participant

    Hi Support Team

    Just started using UpdraftPlus and wanting to back up several sites to Dropbox – current capacity about 2 Gb.

    Wanting to backup all that I would need to restore a website.
    The question is – do I need to backup the WP Core as well?
    And is the Theme I’m using a separate group of files?

    If you needed to restore, does the WP Core come from one place, the Theme from another, and the specific adaptations and plugins and settings for the plugins and Theme come from the backup itself?

    Just wanted to make sure I’m doing this right, as it may be too late to ask if I get hacked and don’t have the necessary files backed up.

    Thanks.

    Rainer

    November 4, 2013 at 7:24 am #18344
    udadmin
    Keymaster

    Hi Rainer,

    On the WP Core question, see this newly-created FAQ: https://updraftplus.com/faqs/need-back-wordpress-core/

    You should certainly back up your themes. Themes are not part of WordPress core, and if you do not back it up then you will have to download a new copy by hand from wherever you got the theme from (and lose any modifications you made to the theme files). Basically, a complete and sufficient backup of WordPress should always include the themes, plugins, uploads, others.

    Basically, the uploads backup zip is a backup of wp-content/uploads; and the same for plugins and themes. ‘others’ backs up anything in your wp-content directory that is not covered by uploads/plugins/themes. That (plus the database) covers all the customisations made to a WordPress install.

    If in doubt, just backup everything! It’s always best to have too much backed up than too little.

    David

    November 4, 2013 at 10:11 pm #18346
    Rainer Rollfink
    Participant

    Thanks David,

    My question was prompted by the fact that I got a warning from UpdraftPlus informing me that one of the files was about 700 Mb in size, and took a long time to upload to Dropbox. This is about 1/3 of my Dropbox capacity, so naturally I got concerned about how many sites would fit into this space. Not many at this rate. Checking the files in Dropbox, I see that this file is actually the WP Core file. Does this seem right, or could I have other backup files tied in with this through having used a different backup plugin in the past?

    This is a very basic website, with few pages and a simple theme. The Theme file is less than half a MB. Even the uploads folder containing about 100 images is only about 200 Kb. The largest other file is the plugins, which comes to about 20 MB. How can the WP Core be so huge?

    Thanks again for your help.
    I might try some further backups of other sites and see how they work out.

    Rainer

    November 4, 2013 at 10:12 pm #18347
    udadmin
    Keymaster

    Hi Rainer,

    WordPress core itself is only about 5Mb when zipped. So you must have something else in your WordPress root directory which is enormous. If you copy/paste the warning message, then I can tell you what it is you’ve got that’s 700Mb.

    Best wishes,
    David

    November 4, 2013 at 11:00 pm #18348
    Rainer Rollfink
    Participant

    Hi David,

    Since another backup has run since the first one I did, this time without the WP Core backup, that message seems to have gone.
    However, I have expanded the zip files in my Dropbox and found that the file of around 680 Mb was a wp-db-backup file which would have been created by the previous backup plugin I was using. Maybe it even kept several copies of backups on the system which are still now attached to the WP Core files. I have deleted this off the system now, so will do another backup soon and see how that looks.

    I’ll let you know when that is complete.

    Thanks again.
    Rainer

    November 4, 2013 at 11:22 pm #18349
    Rainer Rollfink
    Participant

    Hi David

    Despite deleting myEASYbackup from the plugins, it seems there is still a backed up zip file somewhere – this is the latest message I’ve got while doing a new backup:

    Tue, November 5, 2013 10:04 – last activity: 1s ago – show log – delete schedule
    Warning: A very large file was encountered: myEASYbackup__2011-10-31_00-00-19.zip (size: 653.9 Mb)

    Not quite sure where to find this file to delete it.

    Thanks,
    Rainer

    November 4, 2013 at 11:28 pm #18350
    udadmin
    Keymaster

    Hi Rainer,

    I think it must be in the root level of your WordPress install. i.e. the same directory that WordPress itself is living in.

    David

    November 5, 2013 at 2:18 am #18351
    Rainer Rollfink
    Participant

    Thanks David,

    Have deleted that file – now the backup is down to about 26 Mb zipped. More realistic. Thanks.

    Regards
    Rainer

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