Every Ultra Web Hosting account is backed up at the server level, but that safety net is ours, not yours. UpdraftPlus puts a copy of your WordPress site in your own hands: you set the schedule, you push the backups off-server to Google Drive or Dropbox, and you can restore a single site yourself in a few clicks without opening a ticket. This guide covers installing UpdraftPlus, scheduling automatic backups, storing them somewhere safe, and restoring when something breaks.
Schedule It, Ship It Off-Server, Test the Restore
A good WordPress backup routine with UpdraftPlus is three habits. Set an automatic schedule so you are never relying on remembering. Send every backup to remote storage so a lost or hacked account does not take the backups with it. And run a test restore once, before you actually need one, so you know it works.
- Automatic schedule for the database and the files
- Retention set so old backups do not pile up on disk
- Remote storage: Google Drive, Dropbox, S3, or email
- One test restore to confirm the set is complete and valid
Never Keep Backups Only in the Webroot
By default UpdraftPlus writes backups into wp-content/updraft/, which lives inside your website. If the account is hacked, suspended, or deleted, the backups go with it. Remote storage is not optional for a real backup strategy. Section 05 connects an off-server destination in a couple of minutes.
- Symptom: site is compromised and the only backup was in the same webroot
- Cause: default local-only storage inside
wp-content/updraft/ - Fix: connect Google Drive, Dropbox, or S3 and let UpdraftPlus prune local copies
01. Why Plugin-Level Backups Matter
We take regular server-level backups of every account, and if a whole server has a problem we can restore from them. That is disaster recovery for us. It is not a substitute for your own backups, for three practical reasons.
- You control the schedule. With UpdraftPlus you decide how often the site is captured, which matters if you publish daily or run a store where every hour of orders counts.
- You can restore yourself. A plugin restore puts one site back in a few clicks from your own dashboard. You do not have to open a ticket and wait for us to pull a copy from a server-wide backup.
- Off-site copies survive account-level loss. Server backups live near the server. If your account is compromised, suspended for a billing issue, or accidentally deleted, an off-server UpdraftPlus copy in your own Google Drive is untouched.
Think of it as layers. Our server backups are the safety net under the whole building. UpdraftPlus is the copy of your own keys you keep at home. You want both. For the cPanel-level version of your own backup, see article 467.
02. What UpdraftPlus Backs Up
A complete WordPress backup is two halves, and UpdraftPlus handles both as separate components you can schedule and restore independently.
Your Content and Settings
Posts, pages, comments, users, and every plugin and theme setting live in the MySQL database. This is small and changes constantly, so it is usually backed up most often.
- All posts, pages, and comments
- Users and their roles
- Plugin, theme, and site options
Code and Media
The files split into plugins, themes, uploads, and others. Uploads is your media library and is usually the largest by far.
- Plugins and themes (your code)
- Uploads (images, PDFs, media)
- Others (anything else in wp-content)
UpdraftPlus does not back up the WordPress core files (the ones you get from wordpress.org), because those are freely re-downloadable and identical on every site. A restore reinstalls core cleanly and drops your database and wp-content back on top. That is normal and keeps the backup smaller.
03. Install and Run Your First Backup
Installing is the standard plugin flow, and the first backup is a single button.
- In your WordPress dashboard go to Plugins > Add New, search for UpdraftPlus, then Install Now and Activate.
- Open Settings > UpdraftPlus Backups.
- On the Backup / Restore tab, click the large Backup Now button.
- In the dialog, leave both Include the database and Include the files checked, then click Backup Now.
- Wait for the progress bar to finish. When it is done, the backup appears in the Existing backups list lower on the same page.
This first backup lands in wp-content/updraft/ on the server, which is fine for a one-time snapshot before you make a change. Do not stop here. Section 05 connects remote storage so future backups leave the account. A backup that only exists on the same server it is protecting is barely a backup.
04. Schedule Automatic Backups and Retention
Manual backups are for right before a risky change. The real protection is an automatic schedule you set once and forget.
- In Settings > UpdraftPlus Backups, open the Settings tab.
- Set the Files backup schedule. Weekly suits most sites, since plugins, themes, and media change slowly.
- Set the Database backup schedule more often, because content changes fast. Daily is a good baseline, and busy stores or news sites want Every 12 hours or better.
- Set retention next to each schedule: how many backup sets to keep before UpdraftPlus deletes the oldest. Something like files: keep 2 and database: keep 7 gives you a week of daily database rollback without hoarding disk.
- Scroll down and click Save Changes.
Retention is a balance between how far back you might need to roll and how much disk the backups eat. A blog that posts weekly does not need 30 daily database copies. A store taking orders every hour wants more frequent database backups and enough retention to catch a problem that is not noticed for a few days. Keep an eye on your quota, covered in Section 08.
05. Store Backups Off-Server
This is the step that turns UpdraftPlus from a convenience into an actual safety layer. On the Settings tab, the Choose your remote storage row lets you send every backup to a destination outside your hosting account.
- In the Settings tab, click a remote storage icon: Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, or Email are the common picks.
- Click Save Changes. UpdraftPlus then sends you to the provider to authorize the connection (for Google Drive and Dropbox you log in and click Allow, then click the link to return to your site to finish).
- Run a Backup Now to confirm the set uploads to the remote destination. You should see it appear in the linked Drive or Dropbox folder.
- Leave the local files backup schedule retention low (keep 1 or 2) so UpdraftPlus prunes local copies after they are safely uploaded off-server.
Do not leave backups sitting only in the site's own webroot. If the account is hacked, suspended, or lost, a backup stored inside it is lost too. Send backups to Google Drive, Dropbox, S3, or email so a copy survives anything that happens to the account. And test a restore at least once before you actually need it. A backup you have never restored is an assumption, not a plan.
The Email destination works for small sites only, because mail servers cap attachment size (usually around 10 to 25 MB). For any real site the database alone can exceed that. Use Google Drive, Dropbox, or S3 for anything with a meaningful uploads folder.
06. Restore From a Backup
Restoring is why you did all of this. When you need to roll a site back, UpdraftPlus does the heavy lifting.
- In Settings > UpdraftPlus Backups, go to the Backup / Restore tab and find the set you want in Existing backups.
- Click Restore next to that set.
- Choose the components to bring back: Database, Plugins, Themes, Uploads, Others. To fully revert a site, select all of them. To fix one broken thing, restore just that component.
- Click through the confirmation, watch the log, and click Restore when it offers the final button. When it finishes, click to delete the temporary restore files.
When the Site Is Completely Down
If WordPress will not load at all, you cannot click Restore from the dashboard. Rebuild from the backup set instead.
- Get a clean WordPress install running on the domain (a fresh install through cPanel Softaculous, or a manual WordPress install into the docroot).
- Install and activate UpdraftPlus on that clean site.
- Open the Backup / Restore tab and use Upload backup files to add your saved backup set (download it from Google Drive or Dropbox first), or reconnect the same remote storage so UpdraftPlus sees the existing backups.
- Click Restore on that set, select all components, and let it rebuild the site over the clean install.
If you are restoring because the site was compromised, do not just roll back and walk away. The hole that let them in is probably still there. Restore to a clean known-good backup, then update everything and harden the site. Walk through 478 for the full cleanup, and once it is stable, tighten performance and caching with 276.
07. Clone and Migrate a Site
UpdraftPlus can also move a site from one place to another, which is handy when you change domains or bring a WordPress site over to us from another host. The free plugin does this through its restore engine: take a backup on the old site, and restore that set onto a fresh WordPress install at the new location. UpdraftPlus rewrites the site URLs during the restore so the copy works at its new address.
The paid Migrator add-on and the Clone feature streamline this, but the manual backup-and-restore path works on the free version for most moves.
If you are bringing a WordPress site to Ultra Web Hosting from another host, our How to Migrate a WordPress Site to Ultra Web Hosting guide walks the whole process, including the UpdraftPlus clone and migrate route step by step. Start there rather than improvising, especially if the domain is changing at the same time.
08. Backups, Disk Space, and Your Quota
Backups are copies, and copies take space. On shared hosting your account has a disk quota, and backups count against it just like your live files do. A site with a 4 GB uploads folder and seven retained backups can quietly consume tens of gigabytes.
- Watch your quota. Check disk usage in cPanel. If backups are pushing you toward your limit, that is a problem waiting to happen, since a full quota breaks uploads, sessions, and sometimes the site itself.
- Keep local retention low. Once remote storage is connected, you do not need many local copies. Keep 1 or 2 and let UpdraftPlus prune the rest after upload.
- Exclude heavy directories. In the UpdraftPlus Settings tab, the files section lets you exclude paths. Large caches, backup folders from other plugins, or a giant media archive you already store elsewhere can be excluded to keep the set lean.
- Push everything off-server. The cleanest way to keep backups from eating your quota is to store them in Google Drive or Dropbox and keep almost nothing locally.
Raising your plan limit is not the fix for backups piling up on disk. Point them off-server and set sane retention. If your live site genuinely needs more space, that is a real upgrade conversation, but do not let a stack of local backups be the thing that fills the account.
09. Plugin vs cPanel vs Server Backups
There are three ways your site gets backed up on our hosting, and they are not competing. They cover different failures.
Your Self-Service Layer
You schedule it, you restore it, and it can live off-server in your own cloud storage. Best for per-site rollback and moving sites.
- You control schedule and retention
- One-click restore from your dashboard
- Off-site copies survive account loss
Full Account Snapshot
cPanel can generate a full or partial backup of the whole account: all sites, email, and databases in one archive you download. Best for a complete account-level copy.
- Everything in the account at once
- Includes email and all databases
- See article 467 for the how-to
The Safety Net
We back up servers on a schedule for disaster recovery. Restores go through support and cover server-level loss, not your everyday oops.
- Runs automatically, no setup by you
- Restore via a support ticket
- Not a substitute for your own copies
Use UpdraftPlus for day-to-day WordPress protection and quick self-restores. Use cPanel backups for a portable full-account archive, covered in 467. Rely on our server backups as the last-resort safety net. Layered, they cover almost anything.
10. Troubleshooting
The backup times out or stalls on a big site. Large sites can hit the PHP execution time limit mid-backup. UpdraftPlus resumes automatically in many cases, but if it keeps stalling, split the job: back up the database and files on separate schedules so neither run is as heavy. If you control the PHP settings, raising max_execution_time in cPanel's MultiPHP INI Editor gives each pass more room.
The restore fails on a huge archive, sometimes with a PCLZIP or zip error. Very large backup archives can exhaust memory or time out during extraction. Increase the PHP memory limit and execution time, or restore fewer components at once (do Uploads on its own, separately from the database). For the specific PCLZIP extraction error and its fixes, see 429.
Backups never upload to remote storage. The remote connection lapsed or was never authorized. Re-open the Settings tab, click the storage provider, save, and re-run the authorization flow. Then do a manual Backup Now and confirm the file lands in the remote folder.
Backups are filling my disk. Local retention is too high or remote storage is not connected. Connect off-server storage, drop local retention to 1 or 2, and exclude heavy directories. See Section 08.
The restored site shows the old URL, or images are broken. This shows up after a migration when the domain changed. UpdraftPlus rewrites URLs during restore, but a few can linger in serialized data. A search-and-replace pass on the database fixes the stragglers. Our migration guide covers this in detail.
Want Us to Check Your Backup Setup?
If you are not sure your WordPress backups are actually running, actually going off-server, and actually restorable, open a ticket and we will look. We can confirm the schedule, verify the remote destination, and talk through a restore plan before you ever need it.
Open a Support TicketQuick Recap: Backups That Actually Save You
If you only do these things, you will be covered:
- Install UpdraftPlus and run one manual backup so you have an immediate snapshot before any risky change.
- Set an automatic schedule: files weekly, database daily or better, with sane retention.
- Connect off-server storage (Google Drive, Dropbox, or S3) and prune local copies so a lost account never loses the backups.
- Watch your quota: keep local retention low and exclude heavy directories so backups do not fill the account.
- Run one test restore before you need it, so you know the set is complete and the process works.
- Layer your backups: UpdraftPlus for self-service, cPanel for a full-account archive, our server backups as the last resort.
Last updated July 2026 · Browse all WordPress articles
