How to Backup WordPress Website to DropBox

It is always a good idea to store your website backup of some other place than your hosting server. If you store backups on your server, you will lose your backups in case your hosting server crashes.

Dropbox is a very popular cloud storage which is ideal for storing your website backups.

In this post, we are going to give a step by step guide on how to back up a WordPress website to dropbox. We will be using the free version of UpdraftPlus.

Here are the steps:


Step 1: Installing the Plugin

The first step is to download the plugin and install it on your WordPress website. Follow this guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

We are using the free version for this tutorial.

Step 2: The Set-Up

After installing the plugin, we will now set up the backup process. On the WordPress admin dashboard, click on settings then select UpdraftPlus Backups as shown below:

Step 3: UpdraftPlus Settings

You will be taken to the UpdraftPlus page with a number of tabs at the top. Click on the Settings tab.

Step 4: Backup Schedule

UpdraftPlus gives you an option to choose the backup schedule. Here, you have an option to manually or automatically backup the website files and database. Just below the Settings tab, you have Files and Database backup Schedule.

If you want to set up an automatic backup, click on the dropdown with the Manual option selected and choose how often you would like the backup to take place. There are several options as shown on the screenshot below;

In this case, I am going to choose a manual back and to keep two backups as shown below;

Step 5: Choosing Dropbox

Scroll down to the “Choose your remote storage” and click on Dropbox. 

Step 6: Dropbox Settings

A new set of Dropbox settings will appear just below the section on the screenshot above. Here, you will be required to authenticate with dropbox and choose the files that you want to backup. By default, we have Plugins, Themes and Uploads selected. You also have an option to exclude any directories from the upload.

In a new tab, visit Dropbox and log in to your account.

Step 7: Dropbox Authentication

Scroll down to the bottom of the page after you have completed the set up above and click the Save Changes button. A new window will pop up asking telling you that you have selected a remote storage option which has an authorization step to complete. Click on the link for the authorization step.

You will be taken to another page to complete setup for Dropbox. Click on the Complete Setup button at the bottom of the page.

The Complete Setup button will take you back to your WordPress dashboard on the UpdraftPlus settings. 


Conclusion

We have successfully set up a Dropbox backup for our WordPress website. It is that simple and does not cost you anything.

TheWphosting Staff

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