Run a Backup Before Upgrading WordPress

Written by Toby

When you run WordPress, cPanel backup utilities are useful and easy to use. Back up your site and your database From the WordPress readme:

Before you upgrade anything, make sure you have backup copies …

This quote is from the WordPress readme.html file in the section “Upgrading Manually.” Even if you use the automatic upgrader, back up your site and your database first. It’s always a good idea.

When you start to upgrade from within WordPress, you will see the highlighted message “Important: before upgrading, please backup your database and files.” This link is to the official WordPress site that provides instructions about how to perform a backup. For cPanel users, the instructions say to use phpMyAdmin. You can do this, but even easier is to use the cPanel “Backups” function. Just look for the icon that I show in the top left of this post.