How to use the Backup service in Site Tools?
Table of Contents
What backup services do we provide?
We create automatic backup copies for all sites hosted on our servers. You can use these copies to restore your whole website or just parts you need specifically, like files, databases, and emails.
Additional features like manual backup creation, hourly backups, and backup downloads are also available depending on your hosting plan or your use of our Premium Backup service.
How to access my backup tool?
To access the Backups tool, go to your website’s Site Tools > Security > Backups.
What are the standard backup features and how to use them?
Our standard backup service includes the following features:
- up to 30 daily backup copies of your site if you’re on a shared hosting plan;
- up to 7 daily backup copies on Cloud hosting;
- restore options for all backups;
- 5 free slots for creating manual backups for GrowBig and higher plans.
How to create a backup?
To create a new backup, simply fill in a name for your backup in the Backup Name field under the Create & Restore section.
Click Create, and your website backup will be ready in a few minutes.
The backup will include all your website’s files, databases, emails, and even Staging copies.
How to find my automatic daily backups?
All your backups are listed in the first tab of the Manage Backups Section. If you want to specifically see the daily backups created for free for all our customers, click on the Daily tab.
How to restore files, databases and emails
To restore website data from any backup, you need to click on the Actions menu and select a restore option.
How to restore all files and databases
If you want to restore your whole site, you should choose the Restore All Files and Databases option and confirm you are OK to have your current site replaced with the backup.
How to restore specific files
If you want to restore specific files, you should choose Restore Files. You have 2 options:
- Choose which files exactly you want to restore and replace them on your site
- Put them in a folder for further review before you decide if you want to use them
How to restore specific databases
If you want to restore specific databases, you should select the Restore Database option. Then, choose which databases you want to restore from the list of all databases backed up on the chosen date.
How to restore email accounts
To restore only your email accounts, select the Restore Emails option. In the following pop-up window, choose the email accounts you want to restore and confirm with the Restore button.
What are the Premium backup features and how to use them?
The premium backup features are available only for sites subscribed to our Premium Backup Service. The Premium Backup Service provides additional backup copies and the option to download all your backups.
How to find my additional premium backups?
5 additional manual backup slots
Sites with Premium Backups are provided with 5 additional slots for manual on-demand backups. Based on the hosting plan, sites with the Premium Backups service will have:
- 5 slots on StartUp
- 10 slots on GrowBig, GoGeek, and Cloud
Once created, manual backups can be found in the Manual tab of the Manage Backups section.
7 additional automatic daily backups
A site with Premium Backups gets 7 additional daily backups on top of the ones included in your hosting plan.
A maximum number of backups will be kept based on the hosting plan.
- For shared hosting plans – a maximum of 37 daily automatic backups
- For Cloud hosting plans – a maximum of 14 daily automatic backups
These backups can be found in the Daily tab of the Manage Backups section.
Hourly backups for the last 48 hours
For sites with Premium backup, we will try to create and keep hourly backups for the past 48 hours.
There are some rare cases in which we may not be able to create a backup for your site every hour (see why). However, we will always do our best to make backups on the lowest possible interval.
These backups can be found in the Hourly tab of the Manage Backups section.
How to download a backup?
For sites with the Premium Backups service, all backups can be downloaded as files. This is done from the backup’s Actions menu > Download.
Once generated, your download link will be available for 24 hours in the Download History tab.
Frequently asked questions
How SiteGround backups make my site safer?
In case your site is negatively affected by a recent event (malware injection, software update, or a developer’s honest mistake at an upload) having a recent backup can save the day. So in such cases, it is extremely convenient to use the restore functionalities of our backup tool.
We also store your backups on a server that is different from the one hosting your site, which reduces the risk of data loss. For most of our sites, this is not only a different server in the same data center but rather a server in a different geographical location. This further reduces the risk of having one and the same negative event affect both your site and its backups.
For more, see this article with information and exact locations where the backups are stored for the different accounts.
How can I purchase the Premium Backup service?
Go to your Client Area > Marketplace > Hosting, scroll down to the section Additional Services, and press the button GET for Premium Backup.
Is the Premium Backup service renewed automatically?
By default, the Premium Backup Service is set to automatically renew, so you don’t have to worry about service suspension due to missed renewal payments.
You can manage your auto-renewal or make a manual renewal yearly payment from Client Area > Websites > Actions menu of the website > Website Settings > Added Extras section > Actions menu of the Premium Backups service > Renewal Settings.
How to cancel my premium backup service?
To cancel your Premium Backups plan, go to your Client Area > Websites > Actions menu of the website > Website Settings > Added Extras section > Actions menu of the Premium Backups service > Cancel.
When are premium hourly backups delayed?
When your site is using the Premium Backup service, we’ll try to create hourly backups for the past 48 hours. Normally a backup is initiated one hour after the start of the previous one.
If a site backup requires an exceptionally long time (more than one hour) to be completed, we may need to increase the interval on which subsequent backups are initiated and keep less than 48 backups.
Some of the reasons that hourly backups may take longer than one hour are:
- your databases use more than 10GB space;
- you have more than 50 databases;
- you have more than 50 database users;
- your site’s inode or disk usage is extremely high.
To ensure the integrity and reliability of your data backups, we may need to extend the backup window to accommodate the additional time required for the backup to be created. If such a permanent extension of this window is needed for any of your sites, you will be informed by our support team via a ticket.
How to import emails from a backup I downloaded?
The backup archive you’ve downloaded from the Backup tool contains the email messages of all email accounts existing in your Site Tools. You can select the messages of a specific email account and import them into an inbox of your choosing.
Here is how you can import emails into a Webmail inbox.
- Find the file backup archive on your local computer. It is a .tar.gz file, usually located in the Downloads folder.
- Uncompress the file.
- The archive will be uncompressed into the folder mnt. Find the mail subfolder. The path is mnt/server_name/yourdomain.com/backup_serial_number/mail.
- The mail folder contains all existing accounts created in Site Tools, each represented by an eponymous folder.
- You can prepare a zip file from which you can import all messages in all email accounts simultaneously by archiving the entire mail folder.
- Alternatively, you can select and archive a separate inbox folder to import the messages it contains. The path of each inbox is mail/user@yourdomain.com/cur.
- Log into the Webmail email account in which you’ll import the messages.
- Select More > Import.
- Click on the Browse button, which will open a file selector for your local computer.
- You can now select the zip file you’ve prepared. Finally, press the Import button to upload the messages into the Webmail inbox.
These steps are specific to our Webmail client. If you use another email service, contact the new service provider and provide them with your backups so they can assist in importing them.
What happens with backups if my site is in suspended/offline mode?
While a site is in a suspended mode for any reason (you have put it in Offline mode, your hosting account has expired or is violating our terms of use, etc.), no standard or premium backups are created. The existing backup copies are also being deleted gradually.