WordPress has created an easy-to-use, accessible platform for creating Ecommerce websites. Unfortunately, many new WordPress users do not take into account the importance of backing up these websites regularly.
One of the most important aspects of running a website is always having fresh backups. Consequently, this provides insurance if any negative events were to occur. Examples of these include server outages, website hacking or errors due to updates.
There is no guarantee that your website may not be susceptible to these vulnerabilities. In order to overcome this, I will outline different methods you can use to backup your WooCommerce database.
How to manually backup your WooCommerce database
Firstly, you can take a manual backup of your WooCommerce database using phpMyAdmin. If you are unsure how to access this, you can read full instructions here. Once you have navigated to your database, select the table from the right panel and click Export.
From here, you can follow the prompts for downloading a .sql export file of your database. If you are a beginner, it is best to keep the default format of .sql. Next, save your downloaded file to a safe folder. By backing up the whole WordPress database, you successfully backup the WooCommerce database too.
How to automatically backup your WooCommerce database
Manually backing up your database is easy, as outlined above. However, you also have the option to set up automatic backups. If you would prefer an automated system to back up your database for you, then there are many useful WordPress plugins you can use.
My personal recommendation is called UpdraftPlus, which I was easily able to use – even as a beginner. UpdraftPlus is a trustworthy plugin that performs complete manual or scheduled backups of all your databases, files, plugins and themes. Therefore, using UpdraftPlus will allow you to successfully and safely backup your WooCommerce database.
Step 1 – Add the plugin
First, go to Plugins > Add New and install the UpdraftPlus plugin.
Step 2 – Activate the plugin and go to the plugin settings
Next, click on install now and activate the plugin. In the settings drop down menu in your dashboard you will see UpdraftPlus backups.
Click on this to go to the UpdraftPlus settings. This is where you will be able to manage and schedule your backups. Click on Backup now to begin.
Step 3 – Backup the database
From this, you can see the options that are easy to setup and understand. The settings will be as default. Click on Backup Now to start backing up your website.
Step 4 – Edit your frequency settings
Additionally, you can set up the frequency of your backups. One of the best parts about UpdraftPlus is that you can set up remote storage to store your backup. As you can see below, I have set up my backups to be stored in Dropbox, but you can use whichever platform you prefer.
There are many options for you to select in terms of frequency. As your website is an Ecommerce store, backing up your WooCommerce database is recommended at least daily, if not twice per day. Of course, this depends on how many sales you make and how frequent you have new data on your website. You can then view your backups and restore them when required.
Conclusion
From this tutorial, you can see how easy it is to backup your WooCommerce database. Therefore, there should be no reason as to why you are not doing this important step in managing your website. Making these regular backups will save you a lot of time and money if something were to happen to your website. If you do not have time to make manual backups, then installing UpdraftPlus and letting it to the work for you is your best option. If you found this tutorial helpful, checkout our other WordPress tutorials here.
