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How to Manually Restore a WordPress Site

from a WordPress Backup?
by Melinda Bartley | Nov 5, 2019 | Auto Restore

Restoring your WordPress backup can help you recover your site when things
go wrong. But the process is not always easy and entails complexities. In this
article, we’ll take you through the easiest ways to restore your WordPress
site. We’ll also cover the difficult ones for advanced users.
 Table of Content [ hide ]
WordPress Backup and Restore explained
Restore your WordPress site from Your Web Host
Using a Backup Plugin to Restore a WordPress site
Restore WordPress Backup with BlogVault
How to Restore WordPress Manually
1. Restore WordPress database from Backups using phpMyAdmin or Cpanel
2. Restore WordPress files from Backups using FTP
What you need to do after your WordPress Restore is complete
Conclusion

Note: This article covers restoring your site from a backup. If you’re looking
to migrate your site to a new host or domain, check out our detailed guides
to migrate to another host, a server or a new domain.

TL;DR – If you’re unable to restore your WordPress backup, it’s time

to consider more reliable backup options for your website. Try our
backup plugin BlogVault. It has a 100% restoration rate and you can
rest assured your backup will always work.

WordPress Backup and Restore explained

Before we learn how to restore a WordPress backup, you need to understand
how your backup works and what it contains. A backup contains all the data
of your website which is categorised into your files and database. You can
take a backup using plugins like BlogVault and UpdraftPlus. You can also opt
for a backup with your web hosting provider, or you can do it yourself by
copying your data manually.

Besides the ‘What; and ‘How’ aspects of backups, it’s also important to
consider the ‘When’ aspect. For example – If you took a backup one week
ago and want to restore it now, you will get your site back to what it was a
week ago. Any changes made in between that will be lost. Which is why we
recommend regular and automatic updates.

Now depending on how you took your backup, you can restore your website
using the following options:

Website Hosting Provider

WordPress Backup Plugin
Manually via phpMyAdmin, cPanel and via FTP
Restore your WordPress site from Your Web Host
Many web hosts provide backup as a part of their hosting package or it
comes as an add-on. These backups are taken regularly as snapshots of your
site so you can get your site back to certain restore points.

If you’ve taken a backup with your host, in most cases, you need to contact
them to get your site restored. They will assign a technician to get your site
restored. This process can take a few hours up to a few days.

In other cases, you would have to download your backup copy and restore it
either manually or using a plugin. We’ve covered how to restore your backup
manually in detail below.

However, there are managed WordPress web hosts like GoDaddy and Kinsta
that have options for you to restore your backup yourself by accessing your
hosting account dashboard. The process varies between hosts and you
should be able to find a guide or tutorial in their help/FAQ section. The
general process entails:

Access your hosting account

Click on your site
You’ll see an option of “Backups” in the menu list
Inside the backups tab, you’ll see an option to restore
You need to select the backup copy you want to restore and proceed

The time it takes to complete the process depends on the size of your site.
Once complete, you’ll be notified and you can proceed to your site to check if
it’s restored.

Using a Backup Plugin to Restore a WordPress site

There are plenty of backup plugins available in the market, but not all of
them provide the same experience. A backup is only as good as its restore
and only a few deliver reliable restores.

While you can get free WordPress backup and restore plugins to do the job,
you’ll be limited in terms of what you can do with your backup. Whereas,
with premium backup plugins, you get access to much-needed restore
features such as automated, one-click restores, fast service, and customer
support.

Now, if you’re using the BlogVault backup plugin, you can be rest assured
your restore is as easy as a few clicks. Furthermore, it has a 100%
restoration rate so you don’t ever have to worry about your backup not
working.
Restore WordPress Backup with BlogVault
If you’re new to BlogVault, you need to create an account, install the plugin
on your WordPress site, and then add your site to the dashboard. Once done,
the plugin will automatically sync your site and take a backup. It usually
takes only a few minutes to backup your entire site the first time. After this,
only changes made to your site will be backed up using incremental sync
technology – this makes the process faster, lighter and efficient. Once you
have a backup, we can proceed to guiding you on how to restore your site.

Step 1
Access the BlogVault Dashboard and select your site. Under backups on the
left hand side, you’ll find an option to restore as seen below:

Step 2
Once you click on Restore, you will need to enter your FTP credentials. You
can find these credentials in your web host account or contact them to get it.
If you still have trouble, you can refer to our guide to finding your FTP
credentials. Enter your host/server name, select the FTP type, and your
username and password. The plugin will verify your credentials and then
proceed to the next page.
Step 3
You’ll be given an option to select your folder in which your WordPress
installation resides. Simply find the folder with your WordPress site’s name,
select it and proceed.

Step 4
Select the backup version you would like to restore from the drop down
menu. Double check your database details.
When you scroll down, you get advanced options in case you need:

A selective restore – which allows you to choose whether you want to

restore only files or only the database.
To change the DNS server location.
HTTP authentication – In case you have a password protected site and
need to provide credentials.

If none of these apply to you, you can skip it and start your restore process.

Step 5
Wait a few minutes till Blogvault carries out the restore process. BlogVault
allows you to exit that page while the process runs in the background. You’ll
be notified when it’s complete. Depending on the size of your site, the
restore time can vary. But it usually takes around 5 minutes to get your site
restored. Once done, you’ll see this:
Congratulations, you’re WordPress site is now restored successfully!

Once done, you can visit your site and see that it’s back to normal. However,
it’s best to skim through all the important pages, check the functionality of
all your plugins/theme to ensure everything is working fine. Remember, clear
your cache to see the new changes. That’s all you need to do to restore your
site using a plugin. It’s that simple.

How to Restore WordPress Manually

Attempting a manual restoration entails more complexities and additional
steps and requires some amount of technical knowledge. If you’re unsure
about the backend of WordPress and how it works, you could end up making
things worse. If you’re a beginner, we advise getting a professional to help
you. However, if you’re confident, let’s take a look at how to restore your
site.

Now in order to carry this out, you need to first have separate backups of
your WordPress files and database. If you don’t have backups of these
components, follow our detailed instructions to download files and database
separately. Once downloaded, we can begin to restore the site.

Caution: If your site has been hacked, it’s advisable to get a fresh
WordPress installation from the WordPress repository. This will
ensure there are no backdoor files or infections left behind.
Refer to this section to know how to manually install a WordPress
installation.
Now, get set to restore. This happens in two steps as follows:

For WordPress databases: using phpMyAdmin/Cpanel

For WordPress files: using FTP

Let us start with the first method, which is using phpMyAdmin/Cpanel.

1. Restore WordPress database from Backups using

phpMyAdmin or Cpanel
Step 1: Login to your hosting account and access your phpMyAdmin.

Step 2: Click on “Databases” and you’ll see a drop-down list of all the tables.
Note: For hacked WordPress sites, it is better to first delete your existing
infected database tables before restoring the backup. We suggest you take a
backup of your database before you delete anything.

To delete the database, select the database from the left section. We chose
the one marked in red – bhwpsite_67e. Once you click on the specific
database, all its tables are displayed. From the bottom section, click on the
‘Check all’ option so that all the tables are selected as shown in the image
below. You can see a Drop option on the same menu as shown. Click on it to
delete all the selected tables.

Please note, this is only in case your site has been hacked and you need to
clear your database to ensure no infections remain. The rest can skip this
step.

Step 3: Select the database in which you want to restore all the data. For
the purpose of this article, we chose the bhwpsite_67e database as shown in
the image below. On the top of the screen, there will be an ‘Import’ tab.
Step 4: A new window will open where you can click on the ‘Browse’ button.

Step 5: Clicking on the Browse file option will open a new window. From
your local files, select the location from where you wish to import the MySQL
database tables. This will be the folder where your WordPress database
backup was stored.

Step 6: Next, click on Format, select ‘SQL format’ and hit ‘Go’ at the bottom
of the page. Though it entails just a few steps, the time taken to restore is
extremely long. Once done, you need to visit your site to check if the
WordPress restore was successful.

2. Restore WordPress les from Backups using FTP

Now, to restore your backup archives using FTP, you need to install an FTP
client FileZilla and have your FTP credentials handy. FTP enables you to
transfer files between your local computer and the server over the internet.
You can use this method to install a fresh WordPress core installation as well.

Step 1: Open FileZilla. Enter your FTP credentials and click on Quick Connect
to connect to the server. (Ensure that your FileZilla is the latest version.)
Step 2: Once you are connected to the server, then you would see your local
files on the left side and the remote site on the right.

First, identify the WordPress files in the remote site. In a fresh WordPress
install, the WordPress files would be under the root directory public.html.
Click on the WordPress folder that is named after your website on the right
panel. You’ll see folders such as wp-content,wp-includes and wp-admin.

Second, on the left panel, make sure your backup files are all in a folder
saved on your local system. If you have your backup stored in a zip file,
ensure you unzip it before you start manually restoring WordPress.

Step 3: Now, drag and drop all the files from your local folder (left panel) on
to the WordPress folder on the remote site (right panel). You can choose to
overwrite the files.
The process seems straightforward enough, but it is of utmost importance
not to miss any crucial files file or folders while uploading. While, an
advanced user would know exactly what to overwrite and what not to, this
can be a daunting task for beginners. Which is why we don’t recommend this
method to restore your site.

Not only is this manual restoration process time-consuming, it’s also very
risky and nerve-wracking.

Note: A complete WordPress backup restore can sometimes take days using
the manual method.

What you need to do after your WordPress Restore

is complete
Once you’ve safely restored your site, we strongly advise carry out the
following tasks:

1. Login to WordPress admin and ensure everything is functioning fine. If

you were hacked, check user permissions and ensure you recognise all
users present.
2. Activate the themes and plugins you use. Delete all inactive and
outdated ones.
3. Do a website front-end check. Run through critical URLs and ensure
they are performing well.
4. Take a fresh backup of your restored WordPress site. As we just saw
the difficulties of a manual backup and restore, we recommend you install
a backup plugin to handle it for you.
5. Refresh your cache to reload the new data.
 6. In addition, backup and security go hand in hand. We recommend you
install a security plugin to keep your site safe from hackers.

When you use BlogVault to backup your site, you get complete access to the
security plugin MalCare to take care of all your security needs.

Conclusion
There you have it, the easy and hard ways to restore your WordPress site.
We hope after reading this guide, you were able to restore your WordPress
site successfully. As we mentioned earlier, a backup solution is really only as
good as its restore process. To ensure you can always restore your backup
without a doubt, you need to use a trusted backup solution like BlogVault.
It’s one-click auto restore feature is guaranteed to work and get you back to
business in no time!

For more step by step WordPress tutorials, follow our WordPress blog.

So save yourself a heap of trouble and

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