How do I create and import a WordPress backup on WPManager

Procédure

Do you want to move your WordPress site to LWS hosting? LWS Site Migrator lets you easily create a backup of your site, then transfer and restore it directly from WPManager. This method makes it possible to migrate your site simply, without having to manually transfer your files and database.

Create a backup of your WordPress site

LWS offers its own backup/migration extension for WordPress, LWS Site Migration, allowing you to create and download backups regardless of the WordPress site and send them to an LWS hosting plan.
You can obtain the extension file from WPManager; then add it to your WordPress site.

Once the extension has been downloaded and installed, look for the "Tools" menu and then the "Site Migrator" submenu in the WordPress menu on the left to access the backup management page.

On the newly opened page, you can start the backup process by clicking the "Start backup" button.

After an analysis of your site (the analysis duration depends on the amount of files on your WordPress site), you will be able to view the files and database tables that will be copied. You can choose which files and folders should be included in the backup; some folders are ignored by default and cannot be included, such as common cache folders or the folder containing backups made by Site Migrator.

Once you are ready to back up, click the "Confirm and start" button to begin the process, which may take more or less time depending on the amount of data to back up.
If crons are enabled on your site (WP-Cron or server cron), the backup will continue even if you leave the page.

Manage generated backups

Once the backup is complete, you will find it in the "Your backups" section of the page, with its name, creation date, size, and number of parts.
From here, you can permanently delete it or download it; you can download each part separately or download a single file (ZIP format) containing all parts.

Backups are stored in wp-content/site-migrator-backups, with no expiration date. If you delete the plugin, they will not be deleted unless you add the following line to the wp-config.php file:

define('SM_DELETE_BACKUPS_ON_UNINSTALL', true);

This will force the extension to delete its backups when it is uninstalled.

To open access to WPManager and migrate your site, go to the "External access" section and click the "Generate a token" button.

Once generated, the token will automatically expire 2 hours later, but you can also revoke it manually at any time. It is displayed only once and is not stored in plain text anywhere, so this is your only chance to copy it and paste it into WPManager.

From this block, you can also monitor how the generated URL is being used. If you do not recognize an activity, immediately revoke the connection token.

Migrate a backup with WPManager

On your LWS hosting, you can use our WordPress site management software, WPManager, to manage the various components of your site, such as plugins, themes, users, and more.

You can also use this tool to migrate the backups generated by Site Migrator.
To access it, go to the LWS Panel where the destination hosting is located and click the WPManager icon.

On the newly opened page, if you have never accessed the manager before, click the Detect sites button to start a scan of your hosting and list all WordPress sites. If your sites have already been detected, you can skip this step.

After refreshing the page, a list of detected sites is now displayed, along with some basic information such as the URL, WordPress version, and site installation date.
Then click the Manage button for the site you are interested in to access the advanced settings.

On the management page, go to the "Import/Export" tab and then "Local Files". At the bottom of the page, you will find the "Import a backup from another URL" block; this is where you should paste the URL generated earlier in our extension.
You will also find a direct download link for the LWS Site Migrator extension mentioned earlier.

Once the URL has been generated on the site to migrate, copy it into the provided field and click "Analyze'. After a short loading time, you will see the list of all available backups on the site.

Find the backup you are interested in and click "Restore". After retrieving the archives, a confirmation modal will appear, summarizing the files that will be migrated after verifying the integrity of the archive. You can change the WordPress version that will be used; by default, the backup's current version is selected.

Once validated, the migration will start and replace all the content of the current site with that of the backup. Once migrated, your new site is ready to use.

Conclusion

Thanks to LWS Site Migrator and WPManager, you now have a simple and effective way to back up, manage, and migrate a WordPress site with peace of mind 🚀🙂

You now know how to: create a full backup of your WordPress site, select the files and tables to include, manage your generated backups, generate a secure external access token, and then import and restore a backup from WPManager on your LWS hosting 🔐💾

With this service, WordPress migration becomes more accessible, faster, and above all more reassuring for your web projects 🌐✨

Thank you for reading! Feel free to leave a comment about the service and share your feedback 😊