Manually Restore WordPress Site From Backup (Database, Files & Folders) | WP Learning Lab

In this tutorial I'm going to show you how to manually restore your WordPress site from a backup. We will restore the database, files and folders.

The free versions of a lot of WordPress backup plugins don't have an automatic restore function so if you need to restore your website you have to do it manually.

First let's upload your WordPress website files and folders. Log into your hosting cPanel account and click on File Manager. Open the root of the WordPress website you're restoring.

Once you're in the root upload the ZIP file that contains all your WordPress site files and folders. Once uploaded select all the files in your website root, except for the ZIP, and delete them.

Now click on the ZIP file and click on Extract. That will place all the site files in the root directory.

Now let's restore WordPress database.

Go back into your hosting account cPanel and open the PHPMyAdmin app.

When it loads find your database name in the left hand column and click on it. All of the tables should load in the middle pane. Check the box to the left of all the tables to select them and then scroll to the bottom of the page.

From the drop down select Drop and then click on Go and then Yes on the next page. This will delete your entire WordPress website database.

Now click on the Import tab at the top. Click on the Browse button and find your .sql backup file and click on Open. Then click on Go and your database will be uploaded.

That's all there is to restoring WordPress and restore WP database.. I hope this information helps you! If you have any questions leave a comment below or ping me @WPLearningLab on Twitter.

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[Mr.Zen_]

7 years later and this video saved my ass! Couldn't for the life of me work out how to restore my wordpress website from backup files I did a few years ago (and forgot how I did the backup). Website is working perfectly again now!

[rifatmia]

I am happy to see this video 7 years later. Thanks ❤

[mustafak]

Just restored a hacked website! Thank you so much for this video! Still working great!

[thefluffyunicorn]

I appreciate a teqnical person as yourself made a video explaining how to accomplish how to do a backup of a website for people like me who are not tech savvy. I lost everything because my hosting company didn't have cpanel. I understand know you cannot rely on a hosting company. You cannot rely on plugins. You cannot rely on someone else to do this for you without changing hundreds of dollars. From watching your video and the tragedy I experienced I have came to the conclusion I need to implement your backup stragety myself from scratch and know how to do everything myself. I believe this is the most important thing to know when having a website how to backup and restore from scratch. I'm so glad I found your video. I will attempt this myself I will then let everyone know my results.

[MelodysKitchen]

this video was made 7 years ago... Glad I found you 7 years later.

[JamesSamples]

2021 and it's still helpful. Thank you, Bjorn.

[winkipinky]

Thanks again, this tutorial was concise, well detailed and to the point.. plus easy to follow. Thank you very much!!!

[rmcellig]

This is so easy. I hate using plugins!! Thanks!!!😀

[RossGoldberg]

Thank you for the video. A rogue plugin infected my father's wordpress install, so I had to wipe the whole thing. Luckily I had a manual backup from before the incident, and this helped me quickly restore everything cleanly and easily. Everyone is happy again!

[romicatanasache]

My website broke and I was able to recover it. Many thanks :)

[tonysheppard]

Thanks very much for this, It helped me a lot in restoring my website! Just what I wanted.

[YourMomsSideDude]

2019 and it's still helpful. Thank you, Bjorn.

[benadkins]

You are so awesome. I wonder why your channel doesn't have over 500K subscribers.

[erickmmbando]

Thanks, bruh it worked for me. I was facing 500 internal server error and used all steps include replacing the wp-admin and wp-include but never worked so I deleted and I restore my web completely on my hosting site.
Thank you!

[dr.johnandyvonnewagner]

I bookmarked this video incase I ever need it to restore the files I backed up. Thanks again for the help.

[WilliamOstertagJr_aka-Tony]

THANKS SO MUCH! Took a bit of googling and youtubing, but finally found what I was looking for after a call to the host provider for basically only some new keywords thrown at me to continue researching!

[sleeky]

2020 and its still helpful. thank you Bjorn

[greenlife-gardens]

Thanks, you might have saved my life in the future.

[alix]

Thank you very much! I didn't want to use plugins and save it on online services (i'm working offline), there were only videos WITH plugins and there you are! :)

[texagonproductions]

Excellent! Brief, concise and accurate. Made my day!