How do I create a backup of a website via FTP on cPanel?

Procédure

This manual FTP backup complements the automatic backups included with your cPanel hosting. See the backup policy to find out what is automatically retained.

Why create a backup of your website?

Creating a backup of your website is necessary and very important. Indeed, the backup will allow you to quickly restore your website if needed (error when updating your site, installation of a module or theme incompatible with it).

When setting up a website using a database, it is recommended to have several backups of the database in order to lose as little data as possible, especially when this database may contain login information for your clients' accounts, orders, or invoices.

How do you create a backup of your site via FTP?

To create a backup of your site via FTP, you need to:

• Have installed the FileZilla software: This is an FTP client that will allow you to connect to your FTP space and download your files
• The login information for your FTP client area: you certainly received this information by email. In case you forgot, you can request the login information again.
   

1. Open your FileZilla software, enter the host of your FTP space, your username, and the password associated with the username.

22. As soon as you are connected to your FTP space, double-click the "public_html" or "www" directory. Indeed, all the data associated with your client area are located in this directory.

33. Select all the files you want to back up on your computer, right-click with your mouse, then click "Download". All the files will be added to the download queue (waiting) and will automatically download to your computer.

How do you back up your MySQL database on cPanel?

To connect to your MySQL database via PHPMyAdmin, it is necessary to have access to your cPanel interface.

11. To access your cPanel interface, log in to your site administration located in your LWS client area and click the "Access cPanel" button

22. Go to the "Databases" section of your cPanel web hosting and click the "PHPMyAdmin" button to access your MySQL database.

33. Click the "Export" button for your database

44. First, choose the export method. You have the choice between:

• Quick: which allows you to download all the databases and all the SQL tables 
• Custom: this option allows you to choose the database to download, as well as the tables you want to back up.
   

Then choose the format of your backup. By default, the format is .SQL, you can choose to have this same backup in .CSV or ZIP format depending on your needs. Once you have made your choice, click the "Go" button to download the file.

Conclusion

You are now able to back up your website via an FTP client such as FileZilla as well as your MySQL database on your cPanel web hosting with LWS.

Having a backup of your website is an important thing that will allow you to quickly restore your website in case of a problem. A module allows automatic backups to be performed directly by cPanel for your website. The automatic backup system also allows you to back up the emails located on your cPanel web hosting.

Feel free to share your comments and questions!