Update – 23-07-11: We have now released a newer of the plugin which has many new features. For information on the latest version, please visit the Free WordPress Backup page.
If you have any problems using the plugin or require support you can check out common problems and solutions on our
FAQ page. If you continue to have problems you can find information on where to get help on the Free WordPress Backup page.
The following applies to the first version of the plugin only.
When we first started using WordPress to power our own website earlier this year we were pleased to see that there were a few plugins available to back up our site but disappointed that none of them offered true online backup.
Blogging is big business and if you’ve invested hundreds or thousands of hours writing blog posts you need to have the proper systems in place to ensure that something as simple as disk failure at your web host doesn’t mean all your work is lost.
To help the blogging community we’re giving a way a free plugin with 50 MiB of free space on our secure servers.
5 Steps to Total Protection
- Step 1: Download the plugin here.
- Step 2: Upload the plugin to your blog using the Plugins > Add New > Upload feature in your WordPress Dashboard.
- Step 3: Register for your 50 MiB of free space on our backup portal.
- Step 4: Configure your plugin to enable encryption and provide the login details of your online account by clicking Change Settings on the Tools > Online Backup page.
- Step 5: Schedule your backup by clicking Change Schedule on the same page!
Your WordPress database is now protected! You can then proceed to login to our backup portal to manage and download your backups.
Video Guide
Added 24-01-2011
A very generous community member has published a video on how to register and install the wordpress plugin. JupiterJim has posted this video on his blog which can be found here*. Backup Technology is extremely grateful for the effort that JupiterJim has put in to this tutorial.
* Please note that this is an external link and Backup Technology is not responsible for its content. For more information, please refer to our privacy policy.
Your Data is Secure
At Backup Technology we specialize in online backup and disaster recovery. We provide enterprise level backup services to businesses and individuals complete with disaster recovery plans and tests involving the recovery of entire networks.
All of the data backed up by our customers is highly encrypted and compressed and stored in our primary secure datacentre in Manchester, with a complete mirror of every single backup in our secondary secure datacentre in London.
So with our experience and expertee you can be assured your WordPress database will be in good hands.
Features
Our plugin has been built bottom up and based around creating a highly secure and reliable backup plugin with all the features a blog master requires to protect their blog content.
While developing the plugin we worked closely with several major blog owners in order to get the right features implemented in the way they wanted them. Following is an overview of the major features.
- Online Backup
Our plugin was built with remote online backup in mind.
This saves you space in your mailbox by storing your backups on our secure servers. Every site will get a 50 MiB free quota, and when it is reached the oldest backups will be removed to make space for the newest, so you will always have the latest backups available. Each time a backup is added we’ll also send you a notification email to give you peace of mind that backups are actually happening.
To setup Online Backup you just need to register an account with us and configure the plugin with your login details, as described in the instructions above, and you can login to our backup portal anytime to manage and download your backups. - Locked Backups
To prevent an older backup from being overwriting by newer backups, you can login to our backup portal and “lock” it! This will mark the backup as permanent and prevent it from ever been overwritten. Be sure to leave enough unlocked backups so you can still receive new ones though! - Email Backup
As well as been able to send backups to our secure servers for storage, you can have backups sent as email attachments directly to your inbox. The email attachment is also compressed and encrypted in the same as with Online Backup.
To decrypt an ecrypted backup emailed to you, simply use the “Decrypt a Backup” page in the plugin. - Compression
With the majority of blog posts been text documents, compression techniques can work extremely well. Using the built-in ZLIB support available in nearly all PHP installations today, our plugin can backup a 50 MiB wordpress database into a miniscule 5 MiB file (that’s a 90% reduction!)
And with a 50 MiB storage quota FREE… that would give you 10 days of backups! - Encryption
Fully supporting the “php-mcrypt” extension available on most web servers, our plugin will allow you to encrypt your backups with DES, AES128 or AES256 encryption.
All you need to do is simply enter the settings page, choose an encryption type (we recommend AES128 for the best balance encryption) and enter a password to use as your secret encryption key. Once done, every one of your backups will be encrypted before been emailed to you and/or sent to our secure servers, giving you peace of mind that nobody will ever be able to access your information without your secret encryption key.
However, we must stress that you do not lose your secret encryption key! If you don’t have the key you will never be able to access the backup. It’s that secure! - Scheduling
Don’t want to have to run a backup yourself on a daily basis? Just configure our plugin to run on one of your WordPress schedules!
You can have it send the backup to our secure servers and also have it email it to you when the schedule runs. - On-Demand Backup
Just added a large amount of blog posts in a short space of time? Just go to the Online Backup plugin page and kick-off an on-demand backup. You can have it sent to our secure servers, emailed to you, and even download it directly to your computer as soon as it finishes.
Support & Bug Reporting
If you have any problems using the plugin or require support you can check out common problems and solutions on our FAQ page. If you continue to have problems you can find information on where to get help here.
Screenshots
April 2, 2011 at 10:47 am
My web host does not allow me to set up a folder outside htdocs – where should I put the tmp folder ?
And what properties should I give it ?
April 4, 2011 at 10:24 am
Hi Nick,
Best place is to create a folder at the following location called “tmp”:
wp-content/plugins/wponlinebackup/
Then login to your control panel for your host and password protect that directory or deny access to it completely.
The path to use would then be wp-content/plugins/wponlinebackup/tmp/.
Email our support email address, support at backup-technology dot co dot uk, if you have issues still.
Regards,
Jason.
April 14, 2011 at 5:43 am
hi,
plugin don’t work with 3.1.1
if you activate it >
Notice: has_cap was called with an argument that is deprecated since version 2.0! Usage of user levels by plugins and themes is deprecated. Use roles and capabilities instead. in /home/……../wp-includes/functions.php on line 3387
not nice
April 14, 2011 at 7:58 am
Hi Jason,
Getting ready to install your plugin, thanks for creating such a great product, really helpful to people new to WordPress.
After I’ve installed and done the backup, do I still need to worry about a separate process for backing up plug ins and images in wp-content?
Thank you!
April 15, 2011 at 12:20 pm
Hi Fred,
The plugin works fine with 3.1.1.
The issue you are having is that you have DEBUG mode enabled in WordPress, this makes it report notices warning about deprecated usages that will soon be incorrect in WordPress.
I’ve resolved the error you mention however in 1.0.91. We’re pushing out 2.0.0 soon though so won’t publish that for update. If you go to http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wponlinebackup/ and click “Other Versions” you will be able to download 1.0.91 and manually install that, which no longer causes those errors.
Kind Regards,
Jason.
April 15, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Hi Tayler,
If using verison 1.0.9 (the latest we’ve published) you will need a separate process for plugins and images.
We have 2.0.0rc2 though which is currently beta and undergoing testing still. This version will backup everything in your WordPress installation. Once it backs up everything it will then only backup the database and any files that change.
We’ll be improving this even further over time.
Kind Regards,
Jason.
April 19, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Looking forward to when version 2 is available. Having the facility to back up the WordPress files as well will make this a killer WP backup option.
May 18, 2011 at 6:43 pm
Does your plugin backup pages as well as posts? It looks like it’s just the posts.
May 30, 2011 at 10:34 pm
Blimey, I’m impressed! I’ve just followed the evidence trail of your customer service and response to feedback and it seems to be first class. I was looking for an alternative to EZPZ GBackup which did not work well in my setup. Your Online Backup for WordPress plugin and I think I’ve found developers who take the job seriously. I’m in!
June 3, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Hi,
Any news on when version 2 is going to be ready? We’re frothing at the mouth for it…
Simon