Create new backup task
GD Press Tools Pro includes easy to use Backup addon that can be used to make full website backup or database only backup. If you are running multisite installation of WordPress, there are additional backup types available (individual sites, content directory…). And, for each task, you can specify external storage to upload the full backup.
Before you start, make sure that Backup addon is active. Open GD Press Tools -> Settings -> Addons, and enable Backup and save. All things backup related are on the Backup panel.
Create New Task
Click blue button ‘Create New Backup Task’, and the new task dialogue will appear. Set the name and slug. Slug is used for the file name, so it should be URL safe and you should avoid using special characters, and stick to lowercase letter, underscore and dashes.
Backup Engine
The plugin has 2 backup engines. For small websites, use E1 engine. It is faster and it does everything in a single thread. But, if you have a big website, this engine might run into timeout problems. That’s why plugin has an E2 engine that works in threads, and it takes longer to finish, but it can backup huge websites. Dev4Press website is 3GB in size, and the E2 engine takes about 15 minutes to finish and upload to Amazon S3 storage.
Backup Type
Next, select what you want to backup. A full backup includes all files and database. Depending on your website content, this can be a huge backup, so make sure that your hosting has enough empty space. If your website has a total size of 5GB (files and database), you will need at least 5GB empty space for the backup.
External Storage
If you have configured external storages, they will be listed in the task dialogue, and you can choose one or more storages to upload backup to.
Use the Scheduler
And, you can also schedule the backup to run automatically. You can select the period and the date and time for the first backup to start.
Other Settings
Finally, you can set email notifications to be sent after the backup finishes with an editor for the notification emails, subject and content. The plugin can attach a full backup log with the email. And, you can also control how many local files for this task you want to keep. If you don’t have much space on your hosting account, make sure to keep one or two files only.
Running Tasks
Once you created the backup tasks, the backups tasks list will show all created tasks.
To manually run any task, you will see the Run Now button. If a task is already running, Run Now will not be available. If the task is running, you can see current backup status using the popup you open by clicking on the button Current Backup Status. And, the button List of Backups opens a new panel that shows all the backups already completed. From there you can download backup archives, view logs and more.