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Beginner’s Guide: How to Restore WordPress from Backup

Editorial Note: We earn a commission from partner links on WPBeginner. Commissions do not affect our editors' opinions or evaluations. Learn more about Editorial Process.

Do you need to restore WordPress from a backup file?

Backups help you restore your website in case something goes wrong. However, restoring WordPress from a backup file is not easy for beginners.

In this article, we will show you how to easily restore WordPress from a backup step by step.

Beginner's Guide how to Restore WordPress from Backup

Understanding Backups and Restoring WordPress

There are different ways to create backups for your WordPress site. The best way to create a backup is by using a WordPress backup plugin.

Alternatively, you can also create a manual backup of your WordPress database and download your WordPress files using an FTP client.

Restoring WordPress from backups depends entirely on how you created the backup. For example, backups created using Duplicator can be restored by using the same plugin. Similarly, manual backups need to be manually restored.

A lot of WordPress users don’t back up their entire websites. Instead, they only back up their WordPress theme, uploads directory, and their WordPress database. This reduces their backup size but increases the steps needed to restore the site.

No matter how you create your backup, the basic steps are the same.

Let’s take a look at how to restore your WordPress site from backup. Since we are covering different restore methods, please skip to the section that applies to you:

Note: This guide is about restoring a WordPress site from a backup. If you are trying to move your website to a new domain, then you should check out our guide on moving WordPress to a new domain without losing SEO.

If you are trying to move from localhost to a live web hosting account, then follow this guide on how to move WordPress from a local server to a live site.

Restoring WordPress Using Duplicator Pro

Duplicator is one of the best WordPress backup plugins. It makes it very easy to migrate and back up your site.

First, you need to make sure that you have a complete backup of your WordPress site created by Duplicator.

You can learn more by following our guide on how to back up a WordPress site.

Next, you need to download the backup archive file to your computer. This will be a complete copy of your WordPress files, which includes themes, plugins, settings, and more.

If your backups are stored on a remote storage location like Dropbox, Google Drive, or OneDrive, then you can download your backup files from those locations to your computer.

Next, you need to connect to an FTP client and delete all WordPress files. After that, you need to install WordPress again and log in to your website.

Delete old WordPress files

You will then need to install and activate the Duplicator plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can head to Duplicator Pro » Import from your WordPress dashboard. Next, you can upload the archive file by simply dragging and dropping or clicking the ‘Select File’ button.

Import backup archive file

The plugin will now upload the archive file and show you the details.

You can review the details and then click the ‘Continue’ button.

View archive file status

Next, you’ll need to set a recovery point to quickly restore your site to a prior date.

Once that’s done, you can click the ‘Set’ button.

Set a recovery point

After that, you’ll get a recovery URL that you can store in safe keeping to use anytime in the future.

From here, you can scroll down and click the ‘Launch Installer’ button.

Launch installer

Next, you will need to deploy the package. The plugin will give an overview of the installation details. It will let you choose a full install single site or restore a single site.

You can select the ‘Restore single site’ option and scroll down to click the ‘Next’ button.

Deploy the package

A new window will now pop up with installation confirmation.

You can click the ‘OK’ button to continue.

Installation confirmation

The installer will now extract your backup archive files. Once it’s done, you should see the install results.

You can simply click the ‘Admin Login’ button to finalize the installation of your backup.

Click admin login

Go ahead and log in to your WordPress dashboard.

That’s all. You have successfully restored your WordPress site from a Duplicator backup.

Restoring WordPress From BackupBuddy Backup File

BackupBuddy is a popular premium WordPress backup plugin. If you used BackupBuddy to create backups, then this section is for you.

BackupBuddy offers a very convenient way to restore WordPress from a backup. You need to log in to your WordPress website and go to the BackupBuddy » Restore/Migrate page.

You will need to download a copy of the importbuddy.php file. In the process, you will be asked to provide a password for ImportBuddy. This password will be used when you restore your website.

Download importbuddy

Next, you need to download a copy of your backup if you haven’t already done so. You can download it from BackupBuddy » Backups or the destination that you used to store your backups.

Once you have the backup zip file and importbuddy.php stored on your computer, connect to your website using FTP.

If you have a complete backup of your website, then delete all files and folders from your server.

However, if you have a partial backup, then you need to first download the files that you haven’t backed up. Once you are sure that you have everything backed up, proceed to delete all files and folders from your website’s root directory.

Delete old WordPress files

Next, you need to upload your BackupBuddy backup and importbuddy.php files to your website’s root folder.

Once both files are uploaded to the server, visit importbuddy.php in your web browser. It is in your website’s root directory, so its URL will be something like:

http://www.example.com/importbuddy.php

ImportBuddy will now ask for the password that you created when you downloaded ImportBuddy.

importbuddy password

On the next screen, ImportBuddy will display the backup file you uploaded. In case you did not upload your backup file using FTP, then you can click on the upload tab to upload the backup file now.

If you have your backups stored on iTheme’s Stash storage service, then you can connect to it by clicking on the stash tab now. Once you have selected your database, click on ‘Next Step’ to continue.

Select your backup file

ImportBuddy will unzip your backup file and show you a success message when it has extracted the files. Click on the next step button to continue.

On the next screen, ImportBuddy will ask you to provide the site URL and database information.

If you are restoring a hacked WordPress website or trying to remove malware, then you do not want to use your old database.

You can either drop tables from your old database using phpMyAdmin or create a new database using cPanel. Once you are done creating a new database or emptying the old one, provide your database details.

On the other hand, if you are sure your site wasn’t hacked, then you can use the same old database details.

database settings

Click on the next button to continue, and ImportBuddy will now test your database settings and import your data. Once it is done, click the next step to continue.

Now, ImportBuddy will update your site URLs, paths, etc. After that, you will be asked to test your site. If everything is working fine, then you have successfully restored your website.

Review and cleanup

On the ImportBuddy page, click the ‘Clean up and remove temporary files’ button. This will delete temporary data in the database and files created during restoration.

Restoring WordPress Database From Backup Using phpMyAdmin

When restoring a manually created backup, you may come across two possible choices. You can either create a new database and import your backup into it, or you can empty your existing database and import the backup.

If you are cleaning a hacked WordPress website, then it is very important to change your MySQL username and password before creating a new database or importing it into an existing database.

To create a new database, login to the cPanel dashboard of your WordPress hosting account and click on the ‘MySQL Databases’ icon.

Open MySQL database in Bluehost

Next, you will be asked to provide a name for your database.

Once that’s done, click the ‘Create Database’ button.

Create new database

After creating the new database, you need a MySQL user associated with that new database.

Simply scroll down to the MySQL users section and add a new user.

Add new database user

Next, you need to add this user to the MySQL database.

Scroll down to the ‘Add user to database’ section, select the user along with the database from the dropdown menus, and then click on the ‘Add’ button.

Add user to db

Now your new database is ready. You can use it to restore your WordPress database backup.

Head over to the cPanel dashboard again and then click on the phpMyAdmin option.

phpmyadmin panel in Bluehost

Next, you need to click on your new database name.

After that, click on the ‘Import’ button.

Choose backup file to import

Simply click on the ‘choose file’ button to select your WordPress database backup file, and then click on the go button at the bottom of the page to continue.

phpMyAdmin will now upload your backup and import it into your database. You will see a success message upon completion.

That’s all. You have successfully imported your WordPress database.

Now, the next step is to install WordPress using your new database. If you have already installed WordPress, then just add your new database settings to your wp-config.php file, and you will be good to go.

Restoring WordPress Database Backup Using cPanel

If you manually created a WordPress database backup using the cPanel in your shared hosting, then you can also restore that database using cPanel.

Log into your cPanel account, and under the Files section, click on ‘Backup’.

Go to backup option in cPanel

On the backups page, scroll down to ‘Restore a MySQL database backup’.

Next, click on the ‘Choose File’ button and select the backup file from your hard disk. Once done, just click on the ‘Upload’ button.

Restore database using cPanel

Manually Restoring WordPress Files Using FTP

If you are restoring WordPress to clean up a hacked site, then you first need to delete all existing WordPress files and directories.

Only do this if your backup is up to date and you have everything customized, changed, or uploaded on your website.

If you have all your uploads and customizations, then you can safely delete everything on your website using cPanel (way faster) or using FTP.

To delete all files from your website, you need to log in to the cPanel of your hosting dashboard. Then, under the Files section, click the ‘File Manager’ icon.

Go file manager in cPanel

Go ahead and choose Webroot as your directory and proceed. The file manager interface will now open in a new browser tab. You will need to select all WordPress files and delete them. This way is much faster.

You can also delete files using FTP, but it’s slower. Simply connect to your website using an FTP client and select all files in your WordPress root directory to delete them.

Delete old WordPress files

Next, you need to download a fresh copy of WordPress from WordPress.org and extract it to your hard disk.

Launch your FTP client and then upload all WordPress files to your server.

Upload WordPress files

Once you have uploaded WordPress files, you can upload a wp-config.php file from your backup (only if you are sure that it is clean and not compromised).

Alternatively, you can rename the wp-config-sample.php file in your freshly uploaded WordPress files to the wp-config.php file. After that, you will need to edit the wp-config.php file and enter your database information.

Don’t forget to save the file and upload it back to your website.

Next, you need to upload other files from your backup. We will recommend that you only upload your images in the /wp-content/uploads/ directory.

Once you have uploaded these, visit your website to check that everything is working fine.

Next, you need to log in to your WordPress admin area and start installing the plugins you had on your site.

Now, you can move on to installing your theme. If you have customized your WordPress theme or were using a child theme, then you can restore it from a backup. However, make sure that those files are clean.

Lastly, go to Settings » Permalinks and adjust permalinks settings to match your site, and then update permalinks.

Troubleshooting WordPress Backup Restore Issues

There are some common problems that you may come across when restoring your WordPress website.

We have separate guides for each of them:

Things to Do After Restoring Your WordPress Site

Once you have successfully restored your website, we strongly recommend that you improve your website security.

If you haven’t done so already, please make sure that you have a regular WordPress backup with one of these WordPress backup plugins.

To secure your website, we recommend that you immediately change your WordPress password. If you are running a multi-user website, then ask all users to update their passwords immediately.

You can also install a website firewall. At WPBeginner, we use Sucuri to monitor and strengthen the security of our website. It monitors for security threats, and it also offers malware removal services with its subscription plans. See how Sucuri helped us block 450,000 attacks in 3 months.

We hope this article helped you learn how to restore WordPress from backup. You may also want to see our ultimate step-by-step WordPress security guide for beginners and how to get a free email domain.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

91 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
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  2. Bajrang says

    Let’s suppose, I am restoring 2 days ago file backup, then is it mandatory to restore database backup of the same date also in order to sync both??

    • WPBeginner Support says

      It would depend on what file you’re restoring from and for what reason as some backup plugins include database information.

      Admin

  3. Daniela says

    Hello. If I install a backup, will I lose all the changes I made and plugins I installed after the backup? Thanks!

    • WPBeginner Support says

      It depends on the backup tool used but normally, yes you would lose any changes not backed up.

      Admin

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You will be missing some things but you will have the ability to restore a good amount of your content.

      Admin

  4. KylieM says

    We’ve only just realised that a page was permanently deleted (not in trash) that we need to recover. We completely updated our website a few months back and believe the page was deleted then. We did do a full back up before changes. Only want to recover the one page and not do a full restore which would replace all of our new content.

    How would we do this?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      It would depend on what you used to create the backup but the simplest method may be to create a local installation for your site, restore your site on to your local install, then export the page you want on your live site so you can import it.

      Admin

  5. Siraj says

    Very useful tips. Restoring wordpress site through Cpanel is illustrated well. Thanks for sharing.

  6. bhanuka says

    I was referring to uploading via FTP method. But my old files did not load. Only a blank page came. With some nail biting hours I realised that the wp-config.php file includes following important settings to be set with old site values.
    1. database prefix. I had a custom prefix. If you dont change, WP upgrade will recreate all tables with ‘wp’ prefix while your old data are in old prefix tables.

    2. Authentication Unique Keys and Salts settings must match the old values

    Then it worked

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Thank you for clarifying, glad you were able to find the root of your issue and resolve it.

      Admin

  7. Pawan Sharma says

    I was hosting my website through hostinger free hosting. Now i moved to another service provider. I took backup from hostinger and uploaded the same in new provider c panel under public_html. But my website not displayed. I’m getting below Error and Warning.

    Warning: require(/home/test/public_html/wp-includes/rest-api/endpoints/class-wp-rest-autosaves-controller.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/test/public_html/wp-settings.php on line 232

    Fatal error: require(): Failed opening required ‘/home/test/public_html/wp-includes/rest-api/endpoints/class-wp-rest-autosaves-controller.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/share/php’) in /home/test/public_html/wp-settings.php on line 232

    And don’t find any wp-settings.php file under the root folder piblic_html.

    Please help to solve this problem.

    Thanks all

  8. glenda says

    I’m not a beginner, but am desperately trying to find out how to get past the first screen if I can’t remember my importbuddy.php password. The last WP Core update broke one of my sites and the most recent backup had a fatal error so I had to go back to an old, old backup. iThemes support used to be good, but now it sucks.

    Found your explanation for using BackupBuddy and it’s a good one.

  9. ted says

    Thank you for the article.
    I have a “different” problem:

    I have only the httpdocs directory and the
    wordpress_d database directory (located at var/lim/mysql)
    How can I restore the site with these 2 directories?

    Thank you!!

  10. Kawsar Siddik says

    Backupbuddy is the best WordPress restore/migration tool while working on client’s website. It saves time. Thanks for sharing this tutorial.

  11. Clever Peterson says

    Hello, I backed up my WordPress site with Drop box for WordPress but I’m still confused of where to upload the back up files I have downloaded. Would you please help me?

  12. Eddy says

    I successfully restored my WordPress using phpmyadmin. However when I try to install WordPress using the new database info it says the db already exists, use another name. What do I do?

  13. Roxanne says

    I delete my wordpress site, but I made a back-up before I deleted it. Now I want to re-open the website. Is there a way to just upload the back-up and get everything back to the same way it was?

  14. Vikas says

    Hi I am trying to restore my wordpress site from bck but after I click upload on restore MySQL database option….dead white screen comes up and nothing happens! Any suggestions? Thanks

  15. Vikas says

    I have not taken any backup of my site. And my site is displaying “Access Denied”. And my hosting provider states that my files in that website have been attacked by malware. Is there any method to recover all the data from the hosting ?

  16. joseph says

    I am new to blogging. I want to say thanks for your simplified tutorials, it is helpful. I already bookmarked your site so I can always come back. Once again i say thank you.

  17. nicolas blake says

    can you please tell me how i can access a backup i made with backwpup and I chose “folder” .I once was a programmer now I’m just a duffer

  18. Nate says

    I just got a cpanel full backup from a client. They are now using Godaddy WordPress managed hosting. How in the heck do I restore the site and database to Godaddy from the TAR.zip file?

    Thanks guys!

  19. Hari Kumar says

    My blog is live and can login to admin dashboard. but none of my post is available, and I cannot update my previous post. Plus new post added are not found… while opening.. it says —- a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
    Any Solution??

  20. Jamie says

    Thanks for the information. Just a question: I have a SQL database backup for my blog saved as a .SQL file. What information does this contain? Does it have the theme customised layout? Blog articles? Pictures?

    Many thanks

  21. Mr. Karmaker says

    My website has been hacked. I have made earlier backup zip file in cPanel FileManager. Zip file size is more than 99MB and it can not upload.
    How to restore my site ?
    Any suggestion please.

  22. dana says

    Hi, We recently moved some but not of our blog content from a standalone site to the company website. The posts that we didn’t think we wanted are now in FTP — I’d like to import them to a new wordpress site. Trying to locate specific content within FTP Is a huge pain. Is there any way to export that content into a new wordpress site so I can access it? Thank you.

  23. Prudhvi Raj says

    Good.
    I’ve backed up Home Directory and restoring it, and also uploaded the whole website. it’s like 20 minutes it is saying “restoring files…” . How long does it takes? File is of 1.45GB . Thanks .

  24. Mufaddal says

    Hi there, I want to change my hosting plan from hostgator(HG) to Digitalocean(DO). I have done the setup of DO successfully, how can I get my backup uploaded?
    I have taken a backup of WP site(the file was around 32mb) I m not sure its the whole backup, now my HG plan has expired(not deleted, I can renew it to get my site back) but now what should I do to upload the data, on adminMyPhp it is showing some error while uploading data. I want my site back as it was, on DO server, I dont want to renew my HG plan again, Please guide me, Thank you in advance.

  25. Keesjan says

    hi,
    do you know how to restore a backup when the admin interface is broken?
    Then its not possible to use the interface.

    Is in that case only the phpadmin method the way to go. Or are there any cloud service out there that help me ‘push’ teh bakcyp back to my site, without loggin in mt wp admin?

  26. Mahriya says

    Thanks, what if I had backed up my whole WordPress site(tags, posts media etc…) but only wanted to restore the Media only. Is there any way to do this? I appreciate the help!

    • WPBeginner Support says

      It depends on what method you used to create a backup. Most WordPress backup plugins store all your WordPress files in a zip file. You can extract that file to your computer and then upload the wp-content/uploads folder.

      Admin

  27. Belinda says

    Hello,
    Total beginner here.
    Started building my first WordPress site for a client on my local drive. Used the theme Avada.
    Long story short, I needed a new hard drive in my Mac.
    – Backed up my failing hard drive with time machine.
    – Starting fresh on my computer with a new hard drive.
    – Reinstalled WordPress and MAMP.
    – Moved the website files from time machine applications/MAMP/htdocs to the same place on my computer.

    Reading above I need to do something with the database. But I am completely lost on this.

    Please help as soon as possible!

    Thank you in advance.

  28. tonythanh says

    The problem when we restore wordpress is all image will not display. I have already got this trouble and it made me 3 days for resolve. Here is the way I solve for my site

    1. Install fresh copy of wordpress with new database
    2. Drop all database in phpmyadmin
    3. Import database that you back up lastime
    4. Your site will not work and It need reinstall. Don’t worry.
    5. Login Cpanel, find the wp-config.php file, open, change the prefix wp_ with your new prefix of your last database.
    6. Import your images correct to the folder in uploads.
    7. Done, your site will work well with full images.

    I hope you will get no trouble like me.

  29. Graceson says

    Can you please assist me to restore backedup files using “BACKUPWORDPRESS” in my local drive?

    Thanks in advance.

  30. Tushar says

    Is the method of using FTP to restore your website valid/useful if the main error in FTP is “552-Quota exceeded” . I contacted the host, he says that some malicious plugin has caused this sort of error to occur and complete restoration of the site will be required. I planning to begin from a clean slate by uploading new wordpress and redesigning the entire site: But will this work with above mentioned error?

  31. Angel says

    Thanks a lot for the article! You saved my life helping me to restore a site, easy and simple!
    All the best, Angel

  32. Paul says

    Hi, just a (probably) silly question: can I Re-install now from the wordpress dashboard without losing any settings etc on my site?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You can go to Dashboard -> Updated and click on reinstall now button. That will download a fresh copy of WordPress and replace your old files. It will not change your WordPress settings as those are stored separated in database.

      Admin

  33. Ben Dixon says

    Hi guys, very informative read, thanks for that!

    I have a backup of my SQL database which was created with a plugin and emailed to me. Unfortunately I’ve lost all other files, I’ve contacted my host and they have no backup.

    I’ve installed WordPress and will install the appropriate theme. I can’t recall all the plugins I used.

    I’ve obviously lost all my images, but what else have I lost? Is a restore of my site feasible in your opinion?

    Many thanks for any help at all.

      • Ben Dixon says

        Thanks for that, I’ll give it go. Maybe I can look at the database to help me remember what plugins were there before.

        Cheers guys!

  34. Ali Sajjad says

    Hi, i have done everything and my site is running fine. but i have problem with images all over the site. i don’t know why, because there is no error display during restore process.

  35. Zamby says

    Somewhat complicated question. A few days ago, I updated the wordpress version my site was using. This then made the site fail, and I couldn’t even log in to wordpress due to a fatal error. I then replaced the site with my most recent backup from Feb. 2nd, and things were fixed. However, there is a lot of data from Feb. 2nd that I would like to access if possible.

    This data must have been saved somewhere, but I’m wondering where? Or is it all completely lost and innaccessible in the Cpanel after a backup?

    • WPBeginner Staff says

      It actually depends on how you restored your backup. If you created a new database to restore your backup into and did not delete any files from your webserver then you can get access to your posts by opening the old database using phpmyadmin. You can also find the files you uploaded on your webserver by connecting to your site using an FTP client. These file uploads will be stored in /wp-content/uploads/ folder.

      On the other hand, if your restoration process involved deleting old database by emptying it, and if you deleted old files from server as wel, then you cannot access those files on your own.

      Another possibility to recover that data is by requesting your web host and ask them if they have a backup for your site on the specific date when you deleted all old data. If they have the backup, then they can send it to you.

  36. WPBeginner Staff says

    Simply click on Appearance » Themes and click on the activate button on the theme that you had previously installed. In case you can’t figure out which theme you had previously installed, then you will need to activate them one by one and preview your website until you get the right theme.

    • Urgent help needed @ WPBEGINNER SUPPORT says

      Good day Wpbeginner,

      This is my terrible situation. I made a mistake and i lost my site. and then i requested my Host gator India to give back file for which i paid. They send me in TAR.Zip file. I don’t know how to go about it. They told me to long CP panel and upload and extract. But it didn’t work. Then one rep who helped me and my site came alive. However, if i click any one of the posts it was throwing 403 error. She couldn’t solve it. and another rep said i need to contact my developer…what is this? Develper,!!!(lol)

      and then i moved another host. I tried uploading my back up file. but no use and nothing working. So i had 3 months back up files which i downloaded from WordPress XML. Now it is working except images and the current template is different than the previous.

      I have the back up file from Hostgator and if you could help me how to go with it…i really appreciate.

      Best regards,
      Ramesh.ramaiah

      • WPBeginner Support says

        You can extract the backup file on your own computer using a program that is able to extract .tar and .zip archives like 7zip. After that you can browse the files and upload them to your web server using an FTP client.

        Admin

  37. Timothy says

    I was wondering how to recover a WordPress theme, it wasn’t deleted I just hit active on a new on by accident

  38. Gary says

    Hello, I just stumbled upon this post and was wondering if you could help. I switched hosting plans within godaddy and went from managed wordpress to cpanel. I used a plugin to backup the site before switching, which saved all files including the .sql file. Restoring the site via the plugin did not work so I am trying it the hard way. I have completely removed the site including all files. Then I created a new database and gave it the same name as database_name in the .sql file. Afterwards I uploaded the .sql file from the backup into this database. Then I reinstalled wordpress via cpanel and chose the new database I created. Then I uploaded the rest of the files(themes, plugins, uploads) via ftp. But for some reason this did not do anything. When I logged into wordpress nothing looks different. None of the pages I created or anything was there. The plugins were there and the theme I uploaded was there. However, I can’t access the images from the media button even though they are in the uploads folder. I can’t figure out where I went wrong. The database names match up, I can’t think of anything else. The only thing I can possibly think of is the hostname in my .sql backup file is not localhost. Could that be the issue? I can’t figure out what I am missing. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    • DFPhoenix says

      If your database was correctly restored, you won’t even need to install wordpress again. Asking you to install means, your database isn’t correctly restored. Just my guess.

  39. Dill says

    Hi… I was wondering how to restore my wordpress site if all I have is a complete download of everything that was there. I downloaded everything (everything!) from my host using FTP and didn’t do any fancy backups of databases. Can I just upload that entire backup as is and get the site back? I’m also switching hosts (but not domain names), so I do know I’ll have to edit a file or two also.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      If you only copied everything from FTP then you probably only have your WordPress files and not the database. Without the database backup you can not restore your site. If you have access to your host, then please create your database backup.

      Admin

  40. Kyle says

    Hi,
    Thanks for all your tutorials, I find myself here often. I had a question, is there any way to retrieve the subscribers from a backed up .sql file? The plugin used to collect subscriptions was Subscriber 2.

  41. Bruno says

    Your site is great. Can you write a guide how to restore a backup created with BackWPup? That would be great.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Sure we will try to do that. Meanwhile, here is how to restore your backup created with BackWPUp plugin. Download your backup file and extract it. Inside it your will find a .sql file along with other files. .SQL file is your database backup and you can import it using phpMyAdmin. Upload rest of the files using FTP.

      Admin

  42. tuyen ran says

    how to show my password on file database backup from backupbuddy? It is encryption!. thanks you!

  43. Raji says

    This post is extremely helpful as it has helped me (a newbie) to restore my site….or almost. When i try to login, it takes me to a page that says i should install wordpress again…. the famous 5minutes install. please help.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      It seems WordPress is unable to connect to the database. Or it connected to the database which is currently empty. You have restored your WordPress files but you probably didn’t restore your WordPress database backup successfully.

      Admin

  44. Md Jafrul Islam says

    Thank you very very much. By this info post detail. I can make my site again restore. Thanks Man. Just awesome update more amazing info.

  45. Chris says

    When doing a backup, which backup do I need most frequently? I am offered three choices on the cPanel (full cPanel backup, home directory, database). Would you say it is more important to backup the database file, as long as I have a fairly recent backup of the home directory?

    Thanks for your time!

  46. Bas says

    Thanks for the great guide(s). I had to move 2 sites from 1 server to a new server, and using your manuals it went like clockwork.

    Making the backup via BackWPup was quick and restoring it manually the same.

    I was up and running again in 15 minutes.

    BTW. The version of BackWPup I use (3.0.13) only showed the Dropbox feature after creating, saving and running the backup job.
    I had to change something, when the sites where moved, and there it was.

  47. Naik says

    Hi,
    I recently shifted my blog from one hosting to another in Godaddy. I have the backup of my blog in .sql format. I am trying to import using MySQL, it shows an error “Script timeout passed, if you want to finish import, please resubmit same file and import will resume.” Please help

  48. Brenda says

    I have been able to follow the instructions above for restoring my wordpress database using cpanel by dropping the tables in the current database and replacing them with the backedup database.

    However I can’t work out how to do it if I create a new database – the article says to go into mysql within cpanel and set up a new database, password etc but how do I link the new database to the files that I have reinstalled?

    Thank you

    • WPBeginner Support says

      Brenda, connect to your website using an FTP client like filezilla, download wp-config.php file from your website’s root directory create a backup of it by simply making a copy of it. Open it in a text editor like notepad. and enter your database name, database user name, database password, and host (usually localhost). Save the file and upload it back to your website.

      Admin

      • Brenda says

        Thanks. I have done that but when I try to access the site I get “Error establishing a database connection”

        I did what you said and replaced the original wp-config file with the new version.

        What else do I need to do to be able to use the new version of the database, rather than the original one?

        • Brenda says

          Sorry, some more information that might clarify what is happening. When I try, as suggested in your article, to access the wp-admin url I get an error message that starts with the following:

          We were able to connect to the database server (which means your username and password is okay) but not able to select the NAME database.

        • Brenda says

          Sorry, some more information that might clarify what is happening. When I try, as suggested in your article, to access the wp-admin url I get an error message that starts with the following:

          We were able to connect to the database server (which means your username and password is okay) but not able to select the NAME database.

          At the bottom it says: On some systems the name of your database is prefixed with your username, so it would be like username_webgyzec_replacewp1. Could that be the problem?

          That is indeed the case. So what do I need to change please to get this to work?

        • Brenda says

          OK I can stop sending messages now. Silly error on my part but now everything is working.

          Thank you SO much for such a helpful article.

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