In this tutorial:

IMPORTANT: Backing up your site is a necessary part of normal account maintenance. Please read our article entitled Do you Run Backups of your Servers? for more information regarding backups.

Before making any major changes to your site, it is recommended that you backup your website files and any databases used by your website. You can either create backups via cPanel or download files via FTP and download database backups separately (as described below). If your account is over 3GB in size, please see our article on using FTP to backup your site files.

In cPanel, using the Backup Wizard, there are two different ways you can generate backups of your account. You can generate and download one backup file of your entire account, which includes all of your files and databases or you can create and download backups of these items individually.

If you have software such as WordPress, your database is updated most of the time while your files generally are not changed. This means that you can download backups of your database more often than downloading the full website backup, thus saving yourself time and disk space when storing the backups.

We'll start off below by showing you how to generate the full backup, and then we'll explain how to download individual backups of your files and your databases.

Creating a Full Backup of your cPanel Account

A full backup will create a compressed file (e.g.: /home/exampl3/backup-4.3.2018_10-53-25_exampl3.tar.gz) of your account that includes all of your files, databases, email forwarders, and any emails stored on the server. Once the full backup is created in cPanel, you can then download the backup to your computer.

Generating the one backup file may take longer, but it ensures you have a copy of everything in your account. While this may sound great, if your website is fairly large, downloading these backups on a regular basis takes a lot of time and can take up a lot of disk space.

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    First, log into your cPanel and click on the Backup Manager under the Files sub-header:

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    Next, click on cPanel Backup Wizard:

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    Then, click on Back Up

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    And then Full Backup:

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    Enter your email address if you want to be notified when the backup is complete.

    Then click on Generate Backup:

    NOTICE: The backup process can take up to 30 minutes or more, depending on the size of your website.

  6. The cPanel will begin to backup your website, which places a compressed version of your files and databases in your account. Once it is complete, you will receive an email with the link to download your backup. It is also available in your cPanel for download in the "Full Backup" section:

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Creating a Partial Backup of your Website

If you just want to backup your database, the files in your home folder, or your email forwarders & filters, you can do them individually.

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    First, log into your cPanel and click on the Backup Manager under the Files sub-header:

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    Next, click on cPanel Backup Wizard:

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    Then, click on Back Up

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    On the next screen, instead of doing a Full Backup, on the right side you can choose to backup just your Home Directory, MySQL Databases, or Email Forwarders & Filters:

  5. Backup your Home Directory:

    Click on Home Directory, and a box will appear that will allow you to save the zipped file anywhere on your computer. This will backup all files in your home folder (which includes your public_html directory).

    Backup a MySQL Database:

    Select the MySQL Databases option and a list of databases on your account will appear. Select the database that you want to save and a box will appear so you can save the database to your computer.

    Backup your Email Forwarders & Filters:

    Select the Email Forwarders & Filters option and a list of forwarders and filters on your account will appear. Select the forwarder and/or filter that you want to save and a box will appear so you can save the partial backup to your computer.


Congratulations, now you know how to create a backup of your website using cPanel!

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Comments

n/a Points
2014-03-21 10:16 am

Can you use the Partial Back up feature to back up a single email address linked to the domain name? if yes how?

Can you use the Partial Back up feature to back up only the emails inside email accounts linked to the domain name? if yes how?

Staff
2,342 Points
2014-03-21 2:38 pm
Unfortunately, it is not possible to do so within a cPanel backup. Your mail client, however, may have the option to back up a particular set of emails.
n/a Points
2014-03-26 10:23 pm

Is there a way to do this if my old cPanel does not have Backup Wizard? There's a Backups button, but it just tells me to connect via ftp and download the files one at a time.

Staff
3,713 Points
2014-03-26 10:40 pm
Hello Barry,

If you old host doesn't have the Backup Wizard option in cPanel, you can still just use the Backup option that is present.

You would then want to click on the Download or Generate a Full Website Backup button from there.

If you aren't seeing that option, and you only have the option to download files via FTP, you might want to contact your previous host and simply ask them if they can generate a full cPanel backup for you. Then you would just need to upload that cPanel backup to your account on our server, and then submit a ticket requesting for the backup to be restored to your account.

Please let us know if you had any other questions at all!

- Jacob
n/a Points
2014-03-26 10:46 pm

Wish I could contact the previous host, but there doesn't seem to be anyone there. The old sites are still there, but customer service is long gone. And the only download option appears to be selecting files one at a time for ftp.

Staff
3,713 Points
2014-03-26 11:02 pm
Hello Barry,

If that's the only option they have available in cPanel, then unfortunately that would probably be the quickest way of getting a backup of all your content.

Do you not see the option to click on Download or Generate a Full Website Backup at all?

If not, you should be able to click on Home Directory to download the website files themselves. Then under the Download a MySQL Database Backup section you should be able to click on each database name to download a backup of that database.

You should also see a Download Email Forwarders, and Download Email Filters section as well allowing you to download those.

If you aren't seeing these options at all, then it might not be an actual cPanel interface that your old host is using, in which case you would need to manually download everything over FTP in order to move the files to our server.

- Jacob

n/a Points
2014-03-26 11:10 pm

Nope, no Download or Generate a Full site Backup at all.

When I click on Backups, I get a page with this text. No buttons of any kind.

__

Backups

It is your responsibility to create and maintain your backups, below is a basic guide how to make a backup of your website data..

What is a full backup?

A full backup is a backup of both all website files/directories and the MySQL databases which are required for a complete restoration of your account.:

Step 1: File Backups

1)  Connect to your website via FTP .2)  Find the HTDOCS folder you wish to backup.3)  Download the HTDOCS folder to your home computer and keep it in a safe place.

Step 2: MySQL Database Backups

1)   Login to VistaPanel.2)   Open phpMyAdmin3)   Connect to the database you wish to backup 4)   Click the EXPORT tab. 5)   Select all your tables from the list 6)   Click zipped compression at the bottom. 7)   Click the Go button.

____

Pretty pathetic, huh?

Staff
3,713 Points
2014-03-27 12:10 am
Hello Barry,

Yeah unfortunately that does not look like cPanel interface that you're logging into. I'm assuming it's not showing you anything under the What is a full backup? Because that seems to be the section that would allow for you to backup everything at once.

If you would like for us to take a look for you to see if there is any easier way to transfer your website files, please send an email to support@webhostinghub.com along with your account name with us and the last 4 digits of the credit card on file, or the current AMP password for verification. Please also state that you are doing this per advice from Jacob on the Customer Community team so that I get notified.

Please also include in that email the link to your previous host's control panel interface, along with the username and password we would need to use to access it. Also including a FTP username and password if it's separate from your control panel login would be helpful.

- Jacob
n/a Points
2014-09-19 3:35 am
It was perfectly laid out...no need for improvements!
n/a Points
2014-12-26 1:02 am

Hello, why is it that the Full Backup file created is larger than the Partial Home directoty backup file? Both backups were taken one after the other and for the same website.

Thank-you,

Daniel

Staff
1,198 Points
2014-12-26 6:52 pm
Hello Daniel,

The full backup will also include databases and email config files. where as the partial home directory will only have the files within your home directory.

Kindest Regards,
TJ Edens
n/a Points
2016-03-31 5:12 pm

Is it possible to automate this process? To have a script that runs weekly, that, say:

1. Creates a full or partial backup

2. Sends it over SCP or FTPS to some other location

3. Deletes the local copy

 

If so, how could I go about doing that? (even any pointers will be helpful)

 

Thanks!

Pedro

Staff
12,339 Points
2016-03-31 8:49 pm
Hello Pedro,

Thank you for contacting us. Yes, this is possible, but I could not find a tool or script example to accomplish this.

This means it will require you to develop/custom-code a solution.

Thank you,
John-Paul
n/a Points
2018-03-26 8:02 am

Sir, I have multiple domains in a single Cpanel. So can I take a single domain [ bharatrecruit.com backup from Cpanel file manager?

Staff
17,314 Points
2018-03-26 4:47 pm
Hello Meerja,

If the account domain is "bharatrecruit.com" (the main domain for the account), then yes you should be able to use the cPanel backup for the entire main account and it will also include the other domain files. If you domain is one of the add-on domains, then you should be using the main domain account for the backup.

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